


American Roads

by fairmanor



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: A Little Bit Alexis - Freeform, Alexis Rose is a Badass, Alternate Universe, Angst, Canon Divergence, Enemies to Lovers, Episode: s01e13 Town for Sale, F/M, Family Drama, Fluff, M/M, Major canon divergence, Road Trip, Slow Burn, Smut, The Roses need to COMMUNICATE, road trip au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:13:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 24,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25337446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairmanor/pseuds/fairmanor
Summary: In the slightest twist of fate, Andy Roberts does not slip into a coma before signing the contract. With $1 million under their belts the Roses leave Schitt’s Creek, desperately scrabbling for contacts and allies and people to help get them back into the swing of their old lives.The thing is, David was always going to be ready to snap and run at some point.ORA Road Trip AU, with all sorts of Rose adventures in between.
Relationships: Alexis Rose & David Rose, Alexis Rose & Twyla Sands, Jocelyn Schitt/Roland Schitt, Johnny Rose/Moira Rose, Patrick Brewer/David Rose, Stevie Budd & David Rose, Stevie Budd & Johnny Rose
Comments: 79
Kudos: 157





	1. Our Cup Really Runneth Over This Time

**Author's Note:**

> \- I can already tell this is going to be the most challenging fic I’ve ever written. The first chapter already fought me every step of the way!  
> \- Creating such a massive deviation so early in the show’s chronology has been an absolute mammoth task. I can’t guarantee I’ve not made some major mistakes.  
> \- To align with the story and the AU, Patrick flees his old life a year and a half prior to when he does it in the show.  
> \- This is set in 2016, as per the start of Season 2.

There were only two times in Johnny Rose’s life when he’d felt like this before.

The first was on his wedding day. Waiting beneath the chuppah, fiddling with his platinum cufflinks as he heard Moira screech about the alignment of her bridesmaids before they walked down the aisle. He’d thought about how he wanted to spend the rest of his life with that screech. The second was in the winter of 1991, when he’d received a bank statement showing that his annual salary was in the tens of millions for the first time ever.

And the third, unexpectedly, was here. Uncomfortably warm and full of all the wrong foods in Jocelyn Schitt’s Hallmark, Betty Crocker kitchen, assaulted by the scent of Kraft Singles and sat next to quite possibly the most disgusting man that Johnny had ever met.

But it was that man who’d just saved Johnny’s ass in the best possible way.

It felt like the snapping of fingers around his heart, the pleasant dizziness of profit and gain. The pride as he thought about how he could finally give something back to his family. He hadn’t expected the waiting room of hell to have damp in the wall corners and serve complimentary gingersnaps – that didn’t seem to have any distinguishable ginger or snap – with undrinkable coffee, but after just under a year in Schitt’s Creek Johnny felt like he had been well and truly tested.

He watched Andy Roberts’ greasy stumps of fingers scrawl a messy signature across the last line of the document. Moira visibly sagged with relief beside him as Andy closed the page, running a thumb round the edge of his cheese-crusted lip before spinning the contract across the table to Johnny.

‘S all yours, lil guy,’ Andy wheezed. He was the kind of man who sounded like he was ready to hock phlegm whenever he spoke. He probably was.

Johnny cleared his throat. He tried to adopt the well-worn air of nonchalance he knew from the old days, the one where he would pretend not to be phased by the massive chunk of money that someone had just forked over to him. His poker face, they called it.

He nodded once in Andy’s direction. ‘A pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Roberts,’ Johnny said.

Andy grunted in the manner of someone who understood the gravity of what he’d just done – which, in his case, was purchasing an entire town – but no longer gave a shit.

‘Hmph. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some business of my own to attend to, if you know what I mean.’ He took a final fistful of cheesy crackers and made his way towards the bathroom.

‘Hoping to be back for when you put more dessert on the table, sweetheart,’ he added, nodding towards Jocelyn.

Jocelyn tightened her lips into a forced smile. Her face was frozen like that until Andy slammed the bathroom door behind him. Then she whirled on Roland, panic mounting in her face.

‘So he owns the town now, Rolly? He owns the town.’

Roland snorted. ‘I know, Joce, I was sat here too.’

Jocelyn hummed impatiently. ‘Yeah, but _he. Him._ That man _._ Owns. The town.’

Roland caught on and sighed. ‘I know. I know, he’s an asshole, but it’s not like he has any real authority. I mean, look at Johnny over here. He bought the place twenty years ago and fucked off back to Buckingham Palace.’

Johnny bristled as Roland laughed coarsely. There was something stripped from it, though. None of the usual banter.

‘So what is it now for the great Johnny Rose and Co, huh?’ Roland said, leaning back on the counter and picking his teeth. ‘Back to the old caviar and ivory tower to do…what?’

Johnny cleared his throat. ‘Well, you know, uhm, I have…plenty of ways of getting us back on our feet.’

It was true. He had contacts. His phone and emails were packed full of the most powerful people in the world that no one had ever heard of. He used to communicate with some of his closest friends exclusively through their assistants. There were people out there who still knew him. Still liked him.

Moira leaned in, pointedly looking away from Roland and Jocelyn. ‘John, I fear our beloved tycoons and their hoors of yesteryear have long forgotten us and our little predicament,’ she muttered. ‘You remember the mortifying Allez Vous incident.’

‘I know, Moira, but that was – that was _your_ social circle. There are some real good, honest people on the business side of things.’

‘Hm. In that, I hope you’re right.’

There was a pause. It turned into a longer silence, in which neither Johnny and Moira nor Roland and Jocelyn knew what to say. The grandfather clock in the living room ticked loudly.

Andy plodded back into the room.

‘Just had an idea, Johnny. I’m gonna have to go now since I’m in Toronto first thing in the morning. I could probably get this cashed in and all the deeds n’ shit sorted out faster than you can get a ride. Lemme take care of this and I’ll call you sometime in the week,’ he said.

‘Right, yeah, okay. Now that you mention it, Andy, you don’t think it’d be possible for us to, uh, hitch a ride with you and maybe stick around for a few days just until we know what we’re doing?’

Andy stared at him. Johnny felt his neck flush with that specific embarrassment that came from asking favors.

‘Nah.’

Andy swiped the contract from the table and stuffed it into his jacket.

‘Great nosh, honey,’ he said to Jocelyn. When he slammed the door behind him, it rattled the photographs of the former mayors of Schitt’s Creek that were hung scrappily around the living room and porch.

Moira reached for her bag. Johnny stood up slowly, his eyes locked on the door. The little snap of excitement he’d felt not five minutes ago was gone, a gnawing sensation of uncertainty in its place.

Even though they’d only said it to persuade Andy, it had been right. $975,000. $1,000,000. They were girly numbers to the people Johnny used to know. Pocket money.

With Moira clutching tightly to his arm, Johnny left without a word to Roland and Jocelyn, thinking about gain and recovery and being a Rose and whether that actually meant a damn thing to anyone anymore.

* * *

‘Hello? Yes? H-hello, it’s Johnny Rose, here. Johnny Rose? _John-’_

David looked up to see his father staring at his phone, his eyebrows knitted into that familiar upset look.

‘He hung up on me.’

It was nearly midnight. On his way back from Roland and Jocelyn’s, David had fought the strongest urge to take the family car and drive off to God-knows-where. The tension was still bubbling in the pit of his stomach, ready to snap tight and crash through every sinew of his body at the moment David’s conscious mind agreed to whatever impulsive, self-destructive habit he felt like giving into today. If he pictured it, it looked like that blackish, reddish goop that Alexis used to put on her cuticles that cost $340 a pot.

Speaking of, Alexis was busy having her own phone conversation, playing with the frayed threads of the old couch in the motel reception. She had a gleeful smile as she listened to whoever it was – Jenna? Liesha? – jabbering down the phone about their plans for St. Barth’s.

‘Okay, so we _have_ to go to La Langouste, it’s like the only place worth eating at,’ Alexis said.

Then her smile, just a little bit, slipped at the edges.

‘Oh, I – I don’t know what that is. I’ve never been.’

Pause.

‘I mean…I just haven’t really had the time recently.’

David strained to catch snippets of the conversation from across the room, where he was leaning against the front desk. There was a mountain of suitcases between them. Someone was talking about this _new restaurant that everyone knows about_ and _oh my God, Alexis, I can’t believe you haven’t been, poor thing._

David tuned out of it again and turned to Stevie. She was staring blankly at the suitcases with her chin rested on her arms.

‘I assume you’re getting paid overtime for supervising us way past your shift?’ David said.

Stevie scoffed. ‘I clock out at eight. I could have watched nine and a half episodes of _Friends_ by now.’

‘Mm. And I could have got out of here two hours ago, but Dad is now on his thirteenth phone call to grovel for somewhere to crash and Mom is still trying to decide which of her wigs she wants to take for a ride out.’

There was a lot to decipher from the look she gave him.

_If I see you round here again, I’ll kill you._

_If I don’t see you round here again, I’ll kill you._

_We could have been good friends, you know._

‘You’re not going to New York?’ was what came out.

‘Oh, I very much intend to,’ David said. ‘It’s just that we only have the one car and the cheque isn’t being cashed in til the morning, so we’re gonna have to leave this place as a collective before we –’

_Before we fuck off to our own miserable corners of the world and don’t communicate for a year. Or until one of us almost dies._

‘– Disperse.’

The tension was back. David swallowed it down.

‘That reminds me, son,’ Johnny said. ‘We can all get our own cars again!’

‘With one million?’ Alexis said sceptically. ‘Dad, that’s like one and a half cars.’

‘Not with the way we’re gonna be living. Listen, kids, I know you’re expecting everything to go back to how it used to be, but until I can find a way to get my foot in the door again with my old business pals then things are still gonna be pretty tight. I can give you both some of the money, but –’

Johnny’s phone rang again. He all but jammed it to his ear.

‘Johnny Rose speaking,’ he said hesitantly. ‘Oh, right, right. Yeah, I just assumed you couldn’t come to the phone.’

Then his eyebrows shot up. ‘You can? Yes, three days, that’ll be enough. I – well, I haven’t the means to pay you that kind of board just yet, but as soon as I can I’ll – yep. Yeah. Okay. See you in a couple hours.’

‘Well, then? Into whose open arms are we stumbling like choleric Dickensian orphans?’ Moira drawled.

‘That was Laurie Stephens. He said we can have the second house for a couple of days until the money comes through and we work out what we’re doing,’ Johnny said.

‘Um, okay, but I’m gonna be going to St. Barth’s in like, five seconds anyway, so don’t take any of that board out of my allowance,’ Alexis said.

Moira hummed. ‘Laurie Stephens…wasn’t it he whose wife made that de-lightful little scene at our New Year’s party by accidentally bringing both of those European gigolos that she was trying to keep hidden from the other?’

‘Okay, kids, when we’re in the car, we’re going to make a plan. I don’t want you contacting any old agents, PR reps, tabloids…’

His father’s words muffled as David zoned out again, not entirely sure where the near-future pinpoint lay on his personal world map. He had no idea what had happened to his apartment. His gallery. Even his damn PO Box.

He looked around the old reception again. The musty smell he’d almost gotten used to suddenly returned, almost as if the place was trying to force itself into a relevant part of David’s memory. Part of him was certain he’d forget it as soon as he walked out the door. Another part wasn’t sure if he ever could.

‘So, you’re gonna be flooded with agents and PR reps, then?’ Stevie said.

David would miss that flat sarcasm. Talking to Stevie really was like looking in a mirror sometimes.

‘Oh, yeah. I’m sure they’re gonna be hounding the door, completely caught up on a piece of news that’s now so old it’s basically a rag in the wind.’

Thankfully for David, Stevie felt exactly the same way when it came to their similarities. She knew when David’s mindless self-deprecation was something more than that; she could hear the upset David felt when he talked about how his family truly meant nothing to the outside world, when meaning something was once all they had going for them. Meaning something was money. Meaning something was like breathing.

‘I guess you’d better get yourself back out there and prove them wrong, then,’ Stevie said.

David nodded. Then, Johnny clapped his hands to his knees and stood up. Moira finally decided on a wig. They were ready to go.

‘I guess I’d better. There’s not much I can prove if I’m in this town.’

Stevie raised her eyebrows in agreement. David made a move to grab his bags and boxes, struggling with the biggest ones.

‘Wait, David.’

He turned around.

_You have plenty to prove._

_You need this town more than it needs you._

_I'll miss you._

‘You wanna check for moths in that box before you lock it up in the trunk for hours?’

That earned the shocked, offended look that Stevie had been aiming for. She committed it to memory while David scrambled round his clothes once more, with Alexis hot on his heels yelling to be let out of the reception. In a final knot of chaos, shouting and confusion, the Rose family were pushing themselves out the door of the Schitt’s Creek Motel. Stevie lowered her gaze to the computer when they were making their last few steps, removing their names from the roster and ruling lines underneath their booking.

The door rattling behind them sounded louder than any noise they had made all year.


	2. Dinners and Diatribes

David tried to ignore it. He tried very, very hard to clamp down on the tension in his belly that was rearing up in black, oily waves again, but it was getting harder and harder by the second.

In Schitt’s Creek, he’d managed to keep a hold of himself for a whole year by simply Letting Things Happen. When he and his mother had been embarrassed in front of half the women in the town by trying to peddle some crappy products that they’d already sold themselves, he had slowly and methodically removed the disgusting makeup from his face and listened to the clock ticking until he fell asleep. When he shot a turkey in the neck and watched it twitch out on the dense forest grass, he’d ordered a salad at the Café and over-chewed every mouthful without saying a word.

The car ride to Laurie Stephens’ mansion had been quiet but for stilted arguments and contradicting plans about what they were going to do as a family once everything was “back to normal”, as Johnny said. David had wanted to chain himself to every service station they stopped at, barely able to survive in the tight atmosphere of uncertainty. But the wheels rolled, and again he’d let it happen.

He tried it again here, in the oversized dining room of Laurie and Faye Stephens. They’d pulled up at the house that looked very much like their old one at around 5pm and unpacked their things in Laurie’s guest house, greeted with an unsettling mixture of pity, amusement and charity. He was picking at a salmon pastry parcel and very much not looking at their son Hugo, who’d broken up with him via postcard they were 21. David hadn’t taken the hint, so Hugo tried it again a week later through interpretive dance.

‘I must say, it’s gonna be good to have you back in the loop, Johnny,’ Laurie said. ‘Talk me through what’s happening again?’

David listened to the clink of his fork on the plate. Let it happen.

Johnny puffed up with pride. ‘Well, it’s simple as. Andy Roberts sent the million into my account this morning, and everything’s been sorted.’

‘Hmm. And when’s the rest of the money coming through?’

_Clink. Let it happen._

‘What do you mean?’

Laurie seemed genuinely confused. ‘Well, the million is just a deposit or something, right? An instalment?’

David saw his father deflate a little. He felt a twinge of sympathy for him that he knew had been bred by a year in close quarters with him.

‘Um…no. That’s – that’s it. I have plans to make some investments and, uh, buy some stocks, and…’ Johnny faltered, suddenly looking very small under Laurie’s cold, amused gaze.

Alexis caught David’s eye. Her face was red.

Laurie chuckled, clapping Johnny on the shoulder as he smiled. A shark’s smile.

‘Listen to you, champ. You remind me of us when we were twenty years old. Head full of dreams about the big one million.’

Faye, Laurie’s sharp, willowy CEO of a wife, spoke up. David thought for a second she might be about to defend Johnny, but the smirk on her lips said otherwise. ‘Cut him some slack, Laurie. A million must seem like an awful lot to these people nowadays.’

They were all stifling laughter now. Hugo’s hard blue eyes caught David’s and he looked him up and down in a way that made David feel pathetic.

Moira cleared her throat loudly, clutching Johnny by the arm and muttering something into his ear.

‘Laurie, I think it’s probably time for us to turn in for the night,’ Johnny said loudly, already scraping his chair away from the table. The sound it made was cavernous in the massive room. ‘It’s been a long day.’

Alexis and David followed suit, quickly folding their napkins and standing up. Moira looked round at their unfinished glasses of wine and champagne, poured them all into one and sipped on the mixture as she hurried out of the room. None of them could get out of there fast enough, barely murmuring a ‘goodnight’ as they made their way back to the guest house.

* * *

As soon as the door closed behind them, Moira let out a screech and reached for the overnight bag that was still in the doorway. She pulled out a mask and some sleeping pills, putting both to good use before she’d even got changed or sat down.

‘John, I’ll need you to lead me to the bed, or the bath, or the charming little bench in the mini-garden. Somewhere I can put my own damn-ed existence out of my mind for at least nine hours!’

Alexis scrambled around in her bag for her phone as Moira wailed and blindly groped for a surface and Johnny paced back and forth, seething.

‘Alexis, what are you doing?’ Johnny said.

‘Calling Jenna. I’m going to St. Barth’s, like, now. I need to get out of here.’

‘Can it not wait another day? We need more time to sit down and talk, as a family.’

Alexis’ eyes widened comically. ‘Dad, we’ve been sitting down as a family for a whole year! I need my space!’

‘Darling, get my bags, please.’

‘Everyone, I want you all to listen. We’re not gonna let anything anyone says get us down, or –’

‘O _kay_ , Dad! Can the lecture wait until the morning?’

‘Alexis, you won’t even be here in the morning by the sounds of it! As your father, I’m just trying to –’

‘John, my bags…’

‘We all need to calm down –’

‘ _Me_ calm down, Dad? Why don’t _you_ calm down?’

And… _snap._

‘JESUS CHRIST, WILL YOU ALL SHUT THE FUCK UP?’

The Roses fell silent, their mouths snapped shut as they turned to David, still stood in the same place he’d been when they closed the front door behind them.

They never argued in their old life. Not like this. They didn’t have the stock for it; didn’t know each other well enough. Somehow, this was both better and worse. The slight (and that was _very_ slight) gratitude that David had felt at seeing his family in one place for once was tampered by the fact that every interaction felt like running a cheese grater over an open wound.

He would never say it out loud, but David was the one who’d held them together before. He was Alexis’ emergency contact on her seventeen different IDs. He was who Johnny called when Moira locked herself in the cupboard. They were constantly allowed to snap and break, constantly allowed to express themselves while David had them all strung up in a safety net.

Well, no more.

What could possibly be done for open wounds that weren’t bad enough to need medical attention yet still pained you every day of your life?

_Don’t just let them happen._

They needed to feel the open air, for a start, not stay bandaged up in the stifling guest house of some shitty person who’d probably lent it to them as a joke anyway.

Feeling like he’d said all he needed for now, David grabbed his single bag of essentials, turned on his heel and stormed out of the house.

* * *

12.04 AM

51°

Cloudy, Light Rain

Now playing: “Piano Man” by Billy Joel

* * *

As David drove, he tried to get accustomed to the feeling he had anticipated: the blackish, reddish goop of tension making tracks right beneath his skin, rather than just in his stomach. He was thinking about two things. One of them was the time he’d had appendicitis aged nine. The doctor had told him if they didn’t remove the appendix it might burst and that would be no good for anyone. The other thing was that he had no idea where he was.

He hadn’t been paying enough attention in the car journey from Schitt’s Creek to tell whether he was on his way back there, whether he was in the right lane, whether he was headed all the way up to Yellowknife or all the way down to Florida. All that mattered was driving, and knowing that his family was behind him. It flooded him with guilt, but the numbness in his mind overrode it and put it on hold. So there was another blocked-up feeling he’d have to deal with in a few days or weeks or years.

In short, he felt like shit.

So he drove, and drove, and listened to Billy Joel because it was easy and empty and loud enough to drown out most things. Unfortunately, one of those things was not the unmistakable stuttering of the car’s hood around twenty miles into his journey. David frowned, shifting his weight on the controls to see if the stuttering eased up.

That only seemed to make it worse. Growing steadily more panicked as he listened to the expensive-sounding noises coming from his car – _shit, Dad’s car_ – he looked out for signs of life.

Just as his gaze dropped on the familiar golden arches of a 24-hour fast food place in a service station, the car made its most concerning clunk yet and something felt like it _dropped,_ and David knew he had to pull into this station or else he might be stranded on the highway, flagging down cars in the rain. While his standards were low enough to be open to that, it would remind him a little too harshly that he was, in every sense of the word, homeless.

He managed to get the car parked with a scary amount of effort and all but stumbled into the McDonald’s, never more thankful in his life for processed food and an unhygienic place to sit down. If not a home, then he’d at least get a milkshake.

*

Another hour passed. He knew that because the credits had just rolled on the bored employee’s fourth episode of _Outlander._

David was sitting sideways in a red, faux-leather booth, head resting on the tiled wall, not caring about the grease that would undoubtedly be a permanent feature of every surface. His phone was nearly dead. He had no energy to call any confusing car numbers or insurance people. He didn’t care about the car at all.

He was close to enjoying the silence, punctuated by the occasional woosh of cold air as truckers and post-conference businesspeople stopped by for a late-night snack. That was before it was split by the familiar, insufferable sounds of online language learning:

Ding.

Ding.

‘Voy al cine.’

Ding.

‘Viaje a menudo.’

Ding.

Ding –

‘Oh my God, can you fucking stop?’

David fixed his eyes on the ceiling, surprised at his own outburst. In his periphery, he saw the stranger look up from his phone.

David exhaled and looked back at him. He was wearing a faded blue baseball cap and beige cargo pants (David suppressed a balk at the sight of the latter). On his shoulders hung a backpack huge and bulky enough to win a Scout’s Expedition Challenge badge all on its own by merit of existence.

‘It’s four in the morning,’ David snapped.

Baseball Cap stared him straight in the eye as he lifted his thumb over his phone once more.

David gritted his teeth. ‘Don’t you dare.’

_Ding._

David swung his legs off the seat and shuffled to the edge of it. ‘Okay, I’m not sure if you’re physically capable of listening, but I want you to try. It’s four in the morning. I am delirious, I feel disgusting and my car is fucked. I’m not trying to be funny here, I just want to sit and do something that makes me feel normal, like drinking my milkshake and not connecting with anyone. The last thing I want is some Little League coach and his fucking bird app screaming in my ear.’

Cargo Pants dropped his phone into his oversized pocket with a scoff. ‘Okay, you know what? Take everything you just said, pretend I said it and you’ve got pretty much how I’m feeling right about now. So dial the attitude down, okay? You can’t expect the world to revolve around you in a 24-hour McDonald’s in the ass-end of nowhere.’

He stood up, glaring all the while as he made his way to the self-order screen and started tapping. David regretted that it made him hungry too, because that meant he had to stand up and wait awkwardly behind the stranger – who was turning out to be a real dick – as he completed his order.

Sure enough, Definitely-A-Chad gave him a weird look as he approached. David shrugged in a way that he hoped conveyed a solid ‘what are you gonna do about it?’

‘And you were wrong, as well,’ the guy said. ‘That last sentence was actually funny. I’m surprised you had it in you.’

‘Um, what’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Eh, you just look like the kind of person who isn’t accustomed to team sports and doing normal things like using Duolingo.’ The next part was muttered, but David heard every word: ‘I don’t know, like you’ve been detached from society or something for the past forty years.’

Forty. Years.

Oh, that was _it_.

David actually backed up to give himself adequate room to employ his flailing hands. ‘Well, ex- _cuse_ me, mister, I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, but you have absolutely no authority to comment on my social status and especially my age. You don’t know me, and I don’t know you.’

The stranger snorted. ‘We’re both buying the same crap from a service station at a completely unnecessary time of the night. I don’t think we need to know much more than that.’

David didn’t respond until Boy Scout had ordered his quarter pounder and fries and moved up to the front desk. David ordered himself some chicken nuggets and leaned against the screen to wait.

Now that the first sting of conversation had eased off, an awkward silence smothered them. The automatic doors invited in another gust of wind. An inebriated-looking person scuttled inside, looked around, and rushed out again.

David wrapped his arms tightly around his middle and shifted feet. Baseball Cap cleared his throat and stuffed his hands into his pockets.

Their food arrived at the same time. David hurried over and swiped his tray from the front desk quickly, swerving in a quick U to get back to his booth and shove himself into it as tightly as he could. While that may have been a fool proof method to avoid most insufferable, soft-voiced varsity guys from the boonies, this one was persistent.

David cringed at himself as the guy sat down opposite him without hesitation, barely able to believe he’d just called him ‘soft-voiced’, even if not out loud.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ David said.

The guy looked down very deliberately at his meal and the drink in his hand. ‘Not entirely sure, but I think I might be eating breakfast?’

David rolled his eyes and popped a chicken nugget in his mouth. ‘I mean, sitting opposite me.’

‘Whatever.’

They ate in silence for a few minutes, sometimes accidentally glancing up at the same time, only to glower at each other and go ‘What?’

David’s anger softened at the edges a little as the time wore on. Like repelling magnets, he realized, it was only possible for this guy to talk to him the way he had unless he’d been through something similarly distressing. He was right: the world doesn’t revolve around you in a late-night service station. It can’t. There’s no room for progression, no room for growth. They were stop-off points between family fuckups and mid-life crises, a beacon of light for high school theatre kids and the truly miserable.

Then it hit David that he would need to get out of here at some point. There was no way he could stay here forever, not with a dead phone and a dead car and a most likely dead-inside employee on their night shift. As much as he hated it – and he really, _really_ hated it – Baseball Cap was his only option.

‘My car broke down,’ David said simply.

The guy raised his eyebrows. ‘You mentioned.’

‘I just – I was wondering if you had any idea how I can get out of here at this time of night.’

‘I don’t know.’

David blinked. That wasn’t snippy or annoyed, it was tired. It was so damn tired that David actually felt sorry for him. He wondered if Dressed-For-A-Hike had come to the same realization, that he couldn’t stay in this McDonald’s forever.

David finished off his last chicken nugget and said, ‘What’s your name? I’m getting kind of sick of calling you names in my head.’

The guy laughed at that, releasing some of the tension from his face. Exactly as David had intended.

‘It’s Patrick.’

‘You don’t look like a Patrick.’

He looked down at his burger, mumbling something David couldn’t hear. Though in some delayed reaction, David could have sworn he _did_ hear it, a few seconds later: _‘Ha. I don’t feel like a Patrick, either.’_

‘Your turn, then,’ he said, louder. Deflecting. ‘What’s your name?’

‘David.’

‘David. And where are you going, David?’

‘I…I don’t know. Fuck it. Wherever you’re going.’

Patrick looked at him appraisingly. Kind of like David was something he’d never seen before. But also, absurdly, the expression reminded David of someone looking in a mirror, seeing the same thing he’d seen ten thousand times before. His eyes were full of familiarity and strangeness melded into one.

‘…Why, where are you going?’ David continued hesitantly.

Patrick shrugged. ‘Wherever you’re going.’


	3. Just a Tiny Bit Alexis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- As someone who owns multiple ugly high school theatre show T shirts, I decided Patrick is absolutely the kind of person who has tons and still wears them as kickabout clothing. 
> 
> \- TW for mention of prescription pill withdrawal/recovering from drug dependency.
> 
> \- Get ready for some real Rose family angst in this one, guys.

The first thing David did when he’d managed to get his phone plugged and charged in Patrick’s dumpy gray Toyota was check his emails.

Sure enough, there was one from his bank, asking him to confirm a transfer from Johnny Rose for $100,000.

David breathed out, his eyes stinging with relief as he looked at the six figures. The part of him that wasn’t cold or tired or annoyed at Patrick felt nothing but gratitude.

And, speaking of being annoyed at Patrick, it had gotten a whole lot worse when they’d got in the car. He’d unzipped his jacket, revealing an ugly purple T shirt that had “WHITEOAK HIGH SCHOOL’S _BRIGADOON_ , 2005” emblazoned on the front in cheap, iron-on plastic. Sports, musicals and, judging by the weird economist’s interview he was listening to on the radio, business. What kind of combination was that?

But it didn’t matter. He felt safe and hopeful at the idea that he could, quite soon, make a comfortable life for himself that wouldn’t be so overblown and damaging as last time. After all, when he eventually got to New York, he’d have plenty of people willing to help him out, wouldn’t he?

He had to call his dad. To say thanks. And maybe apologise. Start over.

The phone rang four times. Five times. Then:

‘Hello, you’ve reached Johnny Rose’s voicemail, I’ll get back in touch with you as soon as I can…’

David huffed, scrolling back up his contacts to his next option. He wanted to see if Alexis had got the same amount.

‘Sorry, the person you are trying to call is on another line right now.’

Disappointment and panic rose up in David’s throat like bile. He clenched his teeth and took a deep shuddering breath as Patrick turned out of the service station.

‘Everything okay over there?’ Patrick said.

David silently analysed Patrick’s tone. It was too blank to sound sympathetic _or_ smug, and David was too tired to form any snarky response, so he just nodded.

After a couple hundred yards, the road got smoother and straighter. David closed his eyes as the car glided down the highway in the twilight, falling asleep to distant thoughts about where his family were.

* * *

Johnny Rose’s phone buzzed in the pocket of his overcoat, which was crumpled on a chair in the waiting room of the offices he’d been called to at this ungodly time of night.

Not long after David had stormed out on them, leaving them – in Moira’s words – _marooned_ _and adrift_ at the Stephenses, Johnny had ordered a cab and got them out of there. Alexis was hot on their heels, only she parted from them as soon as possible to get to the nearest airport.

Just like he had at the motel before they left Schitt’s Creek, Johnny found himself yet again calling up old contacts to try and plan some meetings for the next couple of weeks where he could pitch some of the ideas he’d had whirring in his head for the past year. Having gone from almost forty years of success in a high-powered business environment to twiddling his thumbs in a dead-end town, he had felt useless for long enough. If his thoughts were visible, then the motel room ceiling would have been absolutely covered with stray buzzwords and bulleted lists that he’d sometimes jump out of bed to write down before he forgot. The whole motel, in fact, would have borne the endless graffiti of his never-resting brain. When he wasn’t trying to work out how to keep his family from spinning into self-made chaos, Johnny was ever planning, ever strategizing. Yet there was nothing to do except apply for unemployment and schmooze with the mayor. It had made Johnny think, that was for sure. It had definitely made him rethink his prior ethos that _anyone_ could be as successful as him, _anyone_ can succeed as long as you have drive and nerve. He hadn’t been rich as a child, but he was certainly never poor. Rose Video might not have fallen into his lap, as Roland had once scathingly claimed, but it was at least placed there gently.

Unfortunately, far too many of his previous friends and business partners had definitely had their successes fall into _their_ laps. They were born dressed in it, those heirs and inheritors and big, powerful men full of legacy and honor. There was pride in it, Johnny had grown to understand, but it was the pride of a medieval king handing his son the crown rather than the middle-class farmer who was finally proud of the life he had built after twenty years of work.

It meant they could boss him around. It meant they could agree to hearing his pitches, but on the condition that the meeting took place at four o’clock in the morning in a whole different country. Granted, it was only Rochester NY, but the humiliating sentiment was there. They were already starting to enjoy watching poor, disgraced Johnny Rose chase after them all in circles.

Johnny tightened his fingers over the cue cards in his hands. Fatigue fought at his eyes. He thought about Moira, alone in the hotel room, and hoped she wasn’t drinking herself stupid or worse. More than his business pitches, he was concerned about how he was going to navigate her next inevitable dip.

He cleared his throat. ‘Rose Video going into administration was never a reality I expected, but it’s one I’m certain I and the remaining team can bounce back from –’

‘I’d like to see 7,500 store closures across North America _bounce back_ , wouldn’t you, Zhang?’ Michael, one of the three businessmen Johnny hoped to work with, said. All three of them chuckled.

There was no way Johnny was going to let them get him down, so he ignored their jibes and kept going.

‘– bounce back from with a revived and modernised approach. By adapting the old business model to a new age of connection and social media, Rose Video could once again be –’

‘We have Interflix for that, old man,’ Lucas, the third man, interrupted. ‘Hurry up and get to some good shit.’

Johnny kept his eyes trained on the cue cards, embarrassment flushing his face. Rather than refusing to let them get him down, he was now focused on getting this read and getting out of here as soon as possible.

He stumbled through the rest of his speech, the last flicker of hope inside him extinguishing at the sound of the billionaire’s caustic laughter. They thanked him “for the show” as he left, catching his briefcase on the side of the table and almost tripping through the door in his hurry to leave.

Thankfully, the hotel was a short walk away and there was no need for a cab. Johnny didn’t think he could handle spending any more right now.

He reached into the pocket of his coat, pulled out his phone and saw that he had a missed call from David. It ached to see his name on the screen; and, as he closed on the final few yards in front of the hotel room door, he realized just how much he blamed himself for David leaving. He really had piled everything on top of him, yet again, hadn’t he? Even after they moved to Schitt’s Creek he was still there, always pressuring him. Making him get a job. Trying to wrap him up in his own overwhelming ideas about business and bouncing back and God knows what else. It all felt so trivial now.

‘John…’ Moira’s weak murmur drifted from inside the hotel room.

Johnny approached Moira gently, lifting her up from where she was slumped on the pullout sofa.

‘Everything alright, sweetheart?’

‘Mmmnh…bed.’

‘Have you taken anything?’ he said warily.

‘No. And John, you know…’ Moira lifted a shaky finger as though to emphasise her point, ‘That is pre _cisely_ the prolbe – the plo…the problem.’

Ah. Withdrawal. Johnny understood. He gritted his teeth and pulled Moira upright, propping her up in bed.

He talked slowly and evenly as he went to pour her a glass of water, muttering his way through familiar ministrations:

‘It’s okay, Moira, you just sit there. It’s hard, I know. I – yes, I know you feel bad. Yes, I know your pills are nice. I know they’re easy. But sometimes things have just gotta be hard.’

He got ready for bed and wrapped an arm around Moira as she shook and whimpered, his chest filling with painful, heartbreaking love for the family that was yet again nowhere to be seen.

‘Yeah…’ He sighed. ‘Sometimes things have just gotta be hard.’

He pulled up the bank app on his phone that Alexis had downloaded for him and looked at the two payments of $200,000 he’d made to the kids earlier that night. Money could at least buy them a bit of happiness, for now. Perhaps a bit of stability. He wondered for the first time whether that was enough.

* * *

‘Alexis, where _are_ you?’

‘In baggage! I’m just trying to get this – _stupid_ suitcase to–’

Alexis’ speech was punctuated by some aggressive kicks to the wheels of her white-and-brown suitcase. She heard Jenna huff impatiently on the other side of the phone. Alexis frowned. It wasn’t _her_ fault. It’d been a while since she’d been actually used her suitcase for anything other than living out of.

‘Okay, well, hurry up. I got Ember and Calypso to wait outside the airport and pick you up. You don’t know them, but they are _such_ babes. Calypso’s only got, like, 9000 followers, and you’ll probably want to slap Ember after five minutes, but… _such_ babes.’

‘Um…okay. Cool.’

Jenna hung up after that. Having finally got her suitcase to cooperate, Alexis started to weave through the airport crowd of jetlagged families and gaggles of socialites rather like herself and her friends. Thankfully, they were too wrapped up in their own conversations to notice that Alexis was still using an iPhone 5. She flattened her palm over the tiny model, already practicing spiel about how she thought it was “retro” for when her friends inevitably questioned her about it.

Ember and Calypso shrieked with delight when Alexis opened the car door, a shrill duet of ‘oh my God, hiiiiii!’ that put Alexis at ease. She buckled herself in and leaned back, a little grateful that they weren’t really all that interested in where she had come from.

Alexis looked down at her phone, her stomach clenching with sad guilt when she saw she had a missed call from David, timestamped at the same time that Jenna had called her.

She couldn’t help but blame herself for David’s outburst. They’d been sleeping in the same room for a whole year, breathing down each other’s necks in the tiny bathroom, pushing for elbow room at the café table. She wouldn’t be surprised if it had been all her fault, that he just needed to get away from everyone.

She looked out the window, nodding and half-responding to Ember’s story about Bella Hadid’s earrings and the misunderstanding they’d had with a capodecina last month. Before long, they pulled up to a restaurant that made Alexis’ jaw drop.

A grey flagstone path bordered by palm and hibiscus snaked up to a wood cabin balanced on four flower-pressed glass stilts. Purple neon lights pulsed softly around the rim of the roof and glinted on the surface of the water below them. The balcony of the restaurant was packed with loud, beach kimono-clad young adults, some of whom shouted and waved down at the three as they approached.

Alexis thought of the money in her account that her dad had deposited a few hours earlier and smiled. She was back.

‘Jenna, Klaire, she’s here,’ Calypso said, plucking a margarita off a tray as they weaved through the group. ‘She’s so _cute!_ You didn’t tell me she was all quiet, like a little mouse thing or a squirrelly person or something.’

Alexis just smiled, though her good mood staled at the edges a bit. She never used to take anything that anyone said seriously – to be honest, she never really used to listen to her friends at all – but it irked her that they had her all wrong. As they sat down for dinner, Alexis wondered what Twyla would say about her if someone had asked.

She took the tiny menu in her hands and stared at the options. More specifically, she stared at their prices, trying to get reaccustomed to a time when prices might as well have not been there and fines were just how much it cost to park somewhere you weren’t supposed to.

She ordered a water and a small salad, hoping the amount of ingredients she requested be taken out would knock off some of the price. Klaire nodded at it approvingly when it arrived.

‘I like the cilantro detox vibes,’ she said. ‘Very 2010.’

‘I know,’ Alexis said. ‘I’m trying to bring it back. The aesthetic is just, like, right for this climate.’

‘So, what do you think of St. Barth’s now? You said you haven’t been here in like two years, so you basically haven’t been.’

‘It’s cute! It’s...yeah, it’s cute. Like having your own private France.’

Klaire hummed in agreement and turned back to her phone, clearly satisfied with Alexis’ answers for now. Alexis ate her salad and let the soothing tropical air wash over her, tuning in and out of conversations she didn’t understand. A lot seemed to have happened in the year she’d been away from social media and tabloids. While she’d been away doing…well, other things. Normal things. Reading and cleaning the streets and having awkward small dinners with Ted. Here, everything still moved so fast. You had to move fast with it otherwise you’d stumble over your own feet.

‘I’m bored now,’ Liesha said loudly. ‘Shall we go?’

The group conceded, everyone standing up from their half-full plates. Alexis stayed seated, her eyes darting round the practically untouched langoustine and Rossini steak and red mullet bisque. For the first time in her life, her mind was whirring with the calculation of it all, the money wasted and the food thrown into the trash. There was already a waitress on her way to clear the plates. She caught Alexis’ eye and smiled. Alexis smiled back hesitantly, trying to convey as much apology as she felt for this woman whose shift had just got a little longer and messier.

She had reddish hair and golden freckled skin, like Twyla in a crisp white uniform instead of a floral boho top. Alexis figured she wasn’t local.

‘Have you been busy tonight?’ Alexis said, not entirely sure why she felt nervous.

The waitress blinked, clearly unused to being talked to by customers. ‘I…yes, we have. Many people come in today.’

Alexis felt a pang of guilt, partly for the waitress’ stress and partly because she’d never thought to do this before Twyla. ‘And…where are you from? Do you live here permanently, or…?’

‘Croatia,’ the waitress said. ‘I come here for a year only before college.’

Alexis smiled. ‘That’s nice. I hope you’re enjoying it.’

The waitress shrugged. ‘It is what it is.’

‘Alexis! We tried that already, none of them saw Tom Hardy last week!’

She turned towards the rapidly dispersing group, every interaction they’d just had most likely forgotten unless it had been posted online and was currently being gobbled up by likes. And it dawned on her, slowly, how incredibly, unfathomably stupid they all were. She could understand because she had been the same. When Ted had sat her down and explained what tax returns were or even Mutt had offhandedly mentioned that he owed something or other to the government, Alexis had felt that stupidity rise up like angry hives, seeping out of her like poison sucked from a wealthy wound.

In one of their less tense moments, she and David had discussed it one night while the lights were out.

‘And I just don’t get what it means, all this stuff about budgeting and being frugal and…not having things,’ David had said, equally as frustrated as Alexis felt.

‘I know. I know. At first, I didn’t get it, but now, like…I _want_ to get it? Money was a huge part of our lives, but it seems to be an even bigger part of other people’s lives even though they have less of it. It’s like…’

Alexis rolled over and huffed out impatiently. ‘I don’t know! I just feel like we existed in this _bubble_ of money, you know? We were put inside a bubble that would never pop, and all the normal people were given a bubble and told not to – to pop it, or something.’

In the dark, she saw David nod fervently. He understood every word.

‘But our bubble did pop,’ he said quietly.

‘I know.’

‘And now what?’

Alexis brought the bedspread up to her chin.

‘I don’t know.’


	4. Are We There Yet?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- My brief revisit of 2016 internet culture for a small part of this chapter was PAINFUL. What a truly cringeworthy time.

David shifted in his seat, the seatbelt digging into his collarbone. His lower back felt twisted beyond repair, his backside was numb and he was pretty sure he’d slipped a vertebra with all the awkward shuffling he’d done to try and get comfortable.

He and Patrick had been on the road for over a day now, and there was still no sign of either of them speaking up about where they actually intended to go.

Patrick was tapping his foot in time with the janky banjo of some crackly country channel. It was one more noise that prickled at David’s skin.

Patrick cleared his throat.

Hummed.

Started _whistling._

‘Okay, what?’ David shot at him.

Patrick glanced his way and raised an eyebrow.

‘Are you trying to get my attention or something?’ David said.

Patrick snorted. ‘I didn’t think getting someone’s attention while sat a foot away from them in a car would be a problem, but apparently it is. I’ve been talking at you for the past hour and you haven’t responded once.’

‘Well, why didn’t you _say_ anything?’

Patrick rolled his eyes, an incredulous expression on his face. ‘I _literally_ did. I just said I’ve been saying things for the past hour.’

‘Okay, but I meant –’

‘Thought it would be funny to see which noises got on your nerves the most so you’d finally pay attention.’

‘Ok _ay,_ Patrick! Ugh.’

David crossed his legs in a last-ditch effort to get comfortable and turned his whole body towards the window.

Then, ‘So would you care to re-enlighten me with some of the riveting conversations you’ve been having with yourself?’

‘I was asking what you were doing on the road in the first place. If that’s a question you...feel okay answering.’

David slowly turned himself back round and eyed Patrick. Even in this quite frankly offensive combination of clothing and the fact that he seemed far too well acquainted with the music on the radio – _God, it was actually called Ranchers FM -_ he was harmless. And if there was anyone out there to vent to, Patrick was his best shot. Something about him said trustworthy. At least, his eyes did. They were soft and brown and owlish in their roundness, the kind of eyes made gentle by long conversations with mothers and nostalgic school days.

‘David?’

‘Oh. Right. Um, yeah. It’s a…long story.’

‘It’s a long car drive.’

David bit down hard on a grin as something unravelled inside him, giving him room to breathe. Just like that, something had got a little easier. Maybe it was talking, maybe it was simply being _,_ but David just felt _easier_. The quiet and pure solitude of being alone with this non-judgemental, non-pushy stranger, contained in a car on the road, nudged him gently onwards. And so he began to speak.

He told Patrick about Rose Video, giving him a second to get his head around the idea that David was the former heir of _the_ Rose Video. He told him about Eli and getting screwed over and the cigarette-smelling towels in the motel. He told him about Stevie and wine and Jocelyn’s kitchen and cheese in meals where cheese absolutely should not be.

Patrick looked at him as often as he could without taking his eyes off the road for too long. When David wasn’t caught up in the catharsis of finally letting all of this out of his system to someone who had never even heard of Schitt’s Creek until today, he sneaked his own glances at Patrick to gauge his reactions.

He didn’t look weirded out, like David expected. Nor did he look too critical or opinionated, not even when David had to dust off some murky stories from his past to provide context. He looked…charmed? Was that the word? Entertained, certainly, but not in a laughing-at-you sort of way. He looked like he was learning. What he might be learning, David couldn’t tell. He certainly seemed to react more to the dramatic crescendo of David's voice and the uncontrollable flap of his hands.

‘…So, anyway, this man gives my dad a million dollars for the place, which is kinda small –’

Patrick interrupted him with a laugh. ‘Ha. “A small loan of a million dollars”.’

David blinked. ‘Excuse me?’

‘You know, the whole million dollars thing. Donald Trump?’

David stared at him, completely blank.

‘Don’t tell me you haven’t been keeping up with all the memes about Trump. They’re everywhere.’

‘Patrick, I deleted all my social media accounts about a week after I moved to Schitt’s Creek. I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘What, so you’ve been completely detached?’

‘It’s 2016, I think we’ve progressed past the need for constant social media usage.’

‘So no bottle flipping? Harambe? Snapchat?’

‘Okay, I neither know what a snap nor a chat is, and I’m convinced you’re just making words up at this point.’

Patrick laughed again. His laugh was a warm, welcoming thing, like changing into dry clothes after the rain. Like a cup of honeyed tea. Or Queen’s ‘Love of my Life’.

_Shut up, David._

‘I’m starving,’ David said, cutting off his own thoughts before they got too cringey. ‘Can we pull off at the next station?’

Patrick looked at his watch. It was grey and chunky and practical, like the rest of him. ‘Yup, it’s around 11am. I’m hungry too.’

It wasn’t long before they turned off into the next station. Thankfully, this one was a little more appropriate for the road than the singular McDonald’s and the grubby restroom that had been stood next to it. This one looked like it had a full supermarket, a less disgusting toilet and –

‘A _shower_ ,’ David said appreciatively. ‘Thank fuck.’

After David and Patrick had taken turns in the shower (David insisted he should go last in an act of altruism - plus, he wasn’t keen on letting Patrick hold his obscene shower time against him) and got redressed in the tiny cubicles, they navigated the aisles of the supermarket. It was well stocked, with a lot of high end brands and the rosy, refined atmosphere of a farmer’s market in the Hamptons.

That made David think. ‘Patrick, where exactly are we right now? And I don’t mean the service station, before you say anything clever.’

‘Hm…’ Patrick thought for a moment. ‘I think we’ve just been making circles and skirting the border.’

‘Like two bits of driftwood with weird clothes that hate each other.’

‘Hey, now…I don’t _hate_ you.’

Patrick looked amused, but he frowned as though he were genuinely trying to convince David.

‘Well, I guess I’ll just have to take your word for it.’

Completely out of nowhere and absolutely against his will, David winked. If Patrick picked up on it then he gave no indication, but he did look away fast. David turned away as well, his head pounding with a steady stream of _whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhythefuckdidyoudothat._

After a couple of minutes of silent choosing Patrick approached David again, arms laden with corn nuts, beef jerky, small variety packs of cereal and chocolate.

‘What?’ he said to David’s disgusted look. ‘I’m in need of comfort food. You weren’t really expecting me to survive off –’ he squinted to read the labels of the two items David was holding – ‘baked kale chips and premium unsweetened almond milk, were you?’

‘Um, yes? This is the first time I’ve eaten anything that resembled _health_ in a whole year. Not gonna pass it up.’

Patrick scoffed. ‘Seriously? We could make the greatest on-the-road feast known to man, and you only care about leaves and fake milk?’

‘It’s _almond_ milk, Patrick!’

‘Uh-huh, and that makes all the difference, does it?’

David nodded. ‘Mm. Yes. It does.’

However, there was a small part of him that remained uncertain. Was it this specific milk that he used to drink? Or was that just another thing he bought because everyone else used to do it? Whatever it was, he didn’t bring it up again. As they cashed their items and made their way back to the car, he felt more and more insecure about the person he had just let Patrick see.

To be honest, he’d kind of surprised himself by making such a song and dance over the expensive foods. It was something he would’ve done in his old life, for sure. But it wasn’t like he’d just spent a year getting accustomed to – and, God forbid, starting to enjoy – “normal people food”, as Alexis called it.

It had taken a while before David realized he didn’t have to care about bougie restaurants that called themselves ‘sensory experiences’ anymore. When he did, he started secretly looking forward to his family’s meals every night, even though they were often tense and the lights of the Café Tropical were so dim and yellow that they made his eyes sting. He grew to like the food a lot; liked the cheapness of the eggs and the chewy bread and the berry compote that he wasn’t entirely sure had ever seen a field or vineyard. He liked the comfort and the honesty of it. It quite literally did what it said on the tin. You knew after a while that you were getting less than what you asked for, sometimes just as much as.

Even before he knew every possible high and low of the unpredictable Café, David was always ordering comfort food for himself. Chicken pot pie, pizza, poutine; a soothing, private interlude before he was paraded around some event where he could guarantee that the only courses would be lavender-scented foam and an aroma of something blown into his face (that had happened twice).

It was the one thing he wouldn’t let Sebastien make him feel bad about, even when he’d pinch at his cheeks and frown at the extra softness on David’s belly in a “constructive” way. It was the one thing he would never let get to him when nameless bed partners made disparaging comments. He knew his little extra weight came from a place of rare self-love, even if the world had told him to look on it with disdain and sometimes he couldn’t help but listen.

To make amends with the Schitt’s Creek version of David that had just started to walk on its own two legs, David decidedly paid much more attention to Patrick’s snacks than his own.

‘So you’re not completely averse to normal snacks, then?’ Patrick said.

David lifted his head and closed his eyes. ‘I – hm, nope. No idea what you’re talking about. There’s no reason I’d ever want to eat a – a corn nut.’ He shoved a handful into his mouth as he spoke.

‘You don’t have to be ashamed of the things you like, you know,’ Patrick said. ‘There’s no need to shrink away from things or – or feel like people are watching your every move.’

‘Patrick Brewer, are you suggesting that I have nothing to lose?’

Patrick laughed. He was doing that a lot. He’d laughed at some of the off-brand items in the supermarket that were clearly ripping off more well-known ones, because he was the kind of person to find that hilarious. He’d laughed at the bad singing on the radio. He kept laughing at things, like he was letting himself laugh after spending a lot of time doing anything but laugh. The sound of it had started to make David's stomach twist into knots.

‘Hey, you said it, not me –’

He was interrupted by the ringing of the hands-free in the car. The radio screen, which had previously stated the date, time and the name of the station, was now lit up with ‘Incoming call: Rachel Arden’.

Patrick’s jaw clamped shut. His face went ashen.

David watched him decline the call, only for it to light up again moments later. That went on and on, calling and declining again and again until Patrick’s knuckles were white around the steering wheel and his eyes were swimming with crystalline tears. He took a deep, shuddering breath through his nose as he let the final call ring through without declining. It didn’t happen again.

Completely unacquainted with the situation, David didn’t press for details. He had a few too many skeletons in his own closet to know that some things didn’t have to be discussed on a road trip between two people that had met twenty-four hours ago. Rachel could be his mom, his sister, a girlfriend, maybe. It didn’t really matter.

What he did say, though, was, ‘Guess I’m not the only one with things to shrink away from.’

There was no malice in it. David knew it was the right thing to say because humor was their go-to when they weren’t arguing. Patrick let out a weak chuckle. Their eyes met and David tried to look as understanding as possible. Patrick nodded.

After about twenty minutes of compatible silence, Patrick said, ‘Do you wanna make a playlist?’

‘Um – I’m sorry, what?’

‘A playlist. For the rest of the road.’

‘How much _rest of the road_ are we talking here?’

Patrick shrugged. ‘It’s just an idea, so we don’t have to listen to the same three country songs on a loop.’

David twisted his mouth a little to the side, trying to hide how much casual intimacy he thought came with making a playlist together. Then he tried not to laugh at his own ridiculousness, treating it like it was some kind of romantic mixtape and he was a blushing boy hanging from his windowsill in the '60s being serenaded by the local high school sports star. 

_Pull yourself together. It's just a playlist. He'll probably delete it when you get out the car._

_But it has to be perfect, though. In case he doesn't._

‘Okay, um, we’ll do one after the other, shall we? I’ll put one on, then you tell me one that you want. Right…I’ve put my first one on. Your turn?’

‘Something from Les Miserables? _One Day More?’_

‘Absolutely not.’

‘How about, I don’t know, more country music –’

‘Fucking NOPE.’

David sighed, shielding his eyes from the peaking sun as they continued to bicker. This was going to be a long day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After this chapter, I might be able to squeeze in one more before tomorrow, but then I'll be going away for a week with no WiFi or signal and won't be uploading for a while. At least that'll give me time to actually write the rest of it, though!


	5. In Which David and Patrick Talk for Twelve Consecutive Hours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Except for the very end, this chapter is almost entirely dialogue! It was a bit of a struggle trying to convey the changes of their relationship over the twelve hours, as well as what was going on around them, lol.
> 
> \- This chapter comes with an abridged version of the playlist that they made! Feel free to listen along as you read: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0UidR4XESeSEmA2No7b0wo?si=u5zo4FYATI6we0tNK4eRig
> 
> \- I may or may not have snuck some Tina and Mariah into the playlist in the time they were meant to be in the service station, so 'their songs' played but they didn't get to hear them...hehe

* * *

12:01 PM

70°F

Mild

Now playing: “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” by The Proclaimers

* * *

‘Have you picked a final song?’

‘Yup. I have to say, I’m not impressed with you.’

‘I didn’t expect much else. Care to tell me what I’ve done to offend your sensibilities this time?’

‘Sensibilities? What are you, an Austen heroine?’

‘Answer the question, David.’

‘Your music, that’s what. It’s so…typical.’

‘Typical of what?’

‘A road trip.’

‘Oh, is that what this is? A road trip?’

‘…No. It’s a prolonged journey taken by two acquaintances who, at this point in time, dislike each other more than they like each other.’

‘Cannot argue with that one. Anyway, I’m glad the songs are typical. What else were you expecting?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘This is a road trip, after all.’

‘Fuck you.’

‘Ha.’

* * *

13:12 PM

75°F

Mild & Sunny

Now Playing: “Malibu” by Kim Petras

* * *

‘May 8th. Why, when’s yours?’

‘July.’

‘July the what?’

‘July.’

‘Yeah, but you have an actual birth _date_ as well, David.’

‘I know I do. It’s just classified information.’

‘What –’

‘You don’t get to know that for another few miles yet.’

‘What, so I unlock pieces of information every mile, like a checkpoint in a video game?’

‘Precisely.’

‘Well, we just passed another mile now. My car told me so.’

‘…Um.’

‘I’m waiting.’

‘I’m thinking. I have a lot of information to sift through. I exist in multitudes.’

‘You sure do.’

* * *

14.37 PM

72°F

Sunny, Light Rain

Now playing: “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” by Elton John

* * *

‘Patrick, stop, STOP!’

‘Oh my God, what?’

‘There’s a – a thing! A thing in the road!’

‘Don’t make me brake like that, David, there’s cars doing 90 here!’

‘Ew, what is that?’

‘Gee, I don’t know, David, looks like a goose to me.’

‘Oh my God, do you think it might be? …Stop laughing.’

‘Not laughing.’

‘You are wheezing like an old man right now. Stop it. It’s a – a horrid, hissing goose, and I want no part in its life.’

‘It’s minding its own business, it’s not even in the road! Now can I please pull out of the layby and keep going?’

‘Let me get my sandwich out first without the car moving.’

‘Oh yeah, I forgot we bought those. Get mine out too.’

‘Maybe next service station we can get something to drink.’

‘Not a fan of birds, then?’

‘I have no quarrel with them, but I’d just prefer not to exist in the same vicinity.’

‘That seems to be your ethos for a lot of things, David.’

‘Shut up a second, the chorus is coming on.’

_‘Oh, I finally decided my future lies…’_

_‘Beyond the yellow brick rooooooad…’_

‘Fucking hell, Patrick!’

‘What?’

‘Your voice! Are you trained?’

‘…No?’

‘Well. Um. Wow. Consider me suitably impressed.’

‘Does this mean I get to put on some Broadway numbers and show off?’

‘Absolutely not.’

* * *

16:50 PM

61°F

Mild, Light Cloud

Now playing: “Honey” by Mariah Carey

* * *

‘So you don’t have siblings, then?’

‘Nope. Just me, Mom and Dad.’

‘Ugh, that sounds like hell.’

‘It was fun.’

‘I don’t think fun is a word I would ever use to describe my parents, no matter how hard they tried to make me with their spontaneous trips to Paris and underground hot tubs.’

‘Why, what are your parents like?’

‘They’re…interesting. They’re good people, but we’re not exactly the Brady Bunch.’

‘And your sister?’

‘Don’t remind me. I still haven’t heard from her since everything went down.’

‘Why don’t you try calling her again?’

‘No point. I’m kind of tired of thinking about the whole family situation anyway.’

* * *

18.12 PM

57°F

Sunny, Light Showers

Now Playing: “Cocaine Karma” by XOV

* * *

‘Your turn again.’

‘Is it?’

‘That’s what the rules on this “fun icebreakers” website say.’

‘Okay. Tell me a fun fact about yourself.’

‘My great grandad was once the oldest person in Ontario.’

‘I said fun fact, Patrick.’

‘That is fun! It’s a fun –’

‘No.’

‘A fun, interesting fact.’

‘Okay, fine. Then what happened?’

‘He died.’

‘…I don’t think you understand the concept of this game.’

‘Fine, next one. Hold the phone up for me. Where is the most peaceful place you’ve ever been?’

‘Probably the blackbox apartment I had in Yokohama in 2012. It was next to these beautiful cherry blossoms. I basically lived off matsutakes and wagyu and didn’t actually speak to anyone except my yoga instructor and my life coach for the whole year. It was...quiet.’

‘Can’t say I was expecting anything less.’

‘But there was also this one spot back home – back in Schitt’s Creek. I don’t know. There wasn’t anything special about it, really. Just the fence over the back of the motel. Sometimes when the weather was right the sunset would weave through the reeds and make them all mauve and golden. There were mosquitoes, but I didn’t really mind. You could hear cows and wagons rolling and teens playing their Jon Langston music in the distance. Everything seemed to float in the heat. Okay, anyway, we’re getting sidetracked. Ignore that whole – that whole thing. That I just said.’

‘Okay, David.’

* * *

11.59 PM

50°F

Clear, Light Rain

Paused

* * *

There was one more song on the playlist before they reached the next service station.

It was one that David had picked. Judging by the prior selection of Mariah Carey, Kim Petras and Lady Gaga, Patrick was expecting something a little more poppy and upbeat. The car was already steeped in a more somber atmosphere than was usual for that day, due to the consecutive playing of Joni Mitchell’s ‘A Case of You’ and Mumford and Sons’ rendition of ‘The Boxer’. Then came ‘Vincent’ by Don McLean, a song Patrick had only heard half of once before in his life. His mom had told him once as a kid that it was a sad song that made her cry, so he’d sort of subconsciously avoided it until now. It took him by surprise, but he had to admit it was one of the most beautiful songs he’d ever heard.

‘Starry, starry night

Paint your palette blue and grey

Look out on a summer's day

With eyes that know the darkness in my soul

Shadows on the hills

Sketch the trees and the daffodils

Catch the breeze and the winter chills

In colors on the snowy linen land’

Patrick’s hands were frozen at ten to two on the steering wheel as he let the haunting poetry wash over him. It was the kind of song he could appreciate for its beauty, but deeply hoped he was never able to relate to.

He chanced a glance at David. His expression bore the burden of someone who could very much relate to it. He was leaning on the window, tears coursing freely down his face. Patrick’s chest ached.

‘They would not listen, they did not know how

Perhaps they'll listen now

For they could not love you

But still your love was true

And when no hope was left in sight

On that starry, starry night

You took your life, as lovers often do

But I could've told you, Vincent,

This world was never meant for

One as beautiful as you…’

David’s eyes were screwed shut now, his body softly wracked with small, contained sobs. Patrick said nothing, but David knew he had seen, and Patrick knew that he knew. He let it pass between them silently.

Patrick had learned a lot in the past twelve hours. As David drew shaky breaths and mouthed the last few lines, it quietly dawned on Patrick that this was someone unaccustomed to small things. He had never once enjoyed little pleasures, never sat and bathed in the simple love of cozy TV shows or a cup of tea. David Rose felt everything so hugely, so grandly; he was convinced by the life he had led that emotion could only be drawn from the finest pieces of art, the most lavish displays of Grecian theatre. He was numbly sculpted by things that other people had told him had worth. He was Amedeo, Theogenes, he was the diamond trellised Fabergé. Yet here he was, cracked open by a song in a car that he’d initially turned his nose up at. A portrait hung in an empty hall, suffering for his sanity. He seemed to have had a taste of the life he needed so badly in Schitt’s Creek, but now he and his family were ripping themselves away from it to shove themselves back into a life that no human really belonged in, like some manic act of self-sabotage.

Patrick wanted nothing more than to play his guitar for him by a campfire and give him something nice and warm to drink. 

He broke the silence gently, his voice no more than a low husk in the midnight.

‘Hey.’

David propped himself up from the window. ‘Hey.’

‘Wanna get something to eat?’

David rolled his lips in, trying for a smile. ‘Yeah.’

Before he knew what he was doing, Patrick reached out and brushed a tear from David’s cheek. David didn’t flinch away.

‘You’re cold,’ Patrick whispered.

‘So are you.’

* * *

2.07 AM

43°F

Clear

Now playing: “Bees” by The Ballroom Thieves

* * *

3.24 AM

42°F

Light Rain

Now playing: “A Sea of Roses” by The Milk Carton Kids

* * *

‘Hm? What?’

‘Nothing. The music was still playing. Go back to sleep.’

‘Mm.’

* * *

3.25 AM

42°F

Light Rain

Paused

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time for a road trip of my own! See you in a week, folks.


	6. Rosebud

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- In this chapter, there’s a slight deviation from canon in that Stevie’s great aunt passes the motel onto her earlier than in the show.

For the past three hours, Johnny had rarely altered his gaze between the clock on the hotel room wall and his phone.

Three o’clock came and went. Then four o’clock. Moira went out for the meeting she had managed to grab with her old agent and came back wailing about how terribly it went. Johnny was still sat waiting. Five o’clock.

‘John, tell me you’re not still waiting on that wretched phone call!’

Johnny turned to the sound of his wife’s voice. Moira was perched at the small kitchen island, a cooling face mask over her eyes and a mug of herbal tea in her hand.

‘It’ll be any minute now. I know it.’

Johnny picked up his phone and scrolled through his missed calls in case he’d blinked in the past two hours and didn’t notice his phone ringing.

‘Dear, please divert your attention from that silent box and get ready with me! We might bump into some valuable old acquaintances at this restaurant you’ve booked –’

Then it rang. Johnny stared at the unknown number on the screen for a disproportionate length of time then accepted the call.

‘Hello?’

‘Mr. Rose?’

Johnny froze at the familiar voice. For a second, he assumed it was the assistant of Mr. Reyes, the man to whom Johnny had pitched a business deal the previous day. But there was no mistaking that quiet weariness, the front desk voice that cracked on every other word from exhaustion or sarcasm or both.

‘Stevie? Is that you?’

‘Um, yeah, it…yep. Sorry, it’s just – I had your number in the motel records, I haven’t stalked you or anything – sorry, that was weird. I was trying not to be weird and I said something weird, and I…’

Johnny’s mind was spinning with a whole host of emotions, but confusion and an unfamiliar touch of fondness seemed to be holding the reins.

‘Okay, just slow down. Is there something wrong? Do we owe you any more money for the stay? Because it won’t be a problem to pay it up.’

Moira scuttled across the room and sat by Johnny’s side.

‘Who is that? The little urchin-like girl from the motel?’

Johnny held up a finger to Moira, nodding.

‘So…I received something from my great aunt in the mail this morning,’ Stevie said slowly. ‘A whole bunch of deeds and things she said she wanted to be “of sound mind” for when I received them? I don’t know. One of those things was…the motel, I guess. Like, the whole motel.’

Stevie laughed weakly, though Johnny could tell she found absolutely nothing funny about the situation.

‘Anyway,’ she continued as though she were rushing herself on, ‘I was just wondering if you had any, I don’t know, tips or advice for starting out. I’m getting really overwhelmed just looking at all these documents. I thought it would be stupid for me not to go to Johnny Rose for advice when the option is there, you know?’

Johnny nodded. ‘Mm. Okay, I…well, at the minute I’m waiting on an important call, but I’d be happy to take your email and send over some solid advice whenever I can.’

‘O-okay. Thank you.’

Stevie told him her email address, stumbled over a few more awkward merits then hung up suddenly.

‘That _was_ Stevie, yeah,’ Johnny said. ‘She was wanting some advice about maintaining a business. I mean, it’s typical, we were only there a few days ago! I could have helped her out in person.’

Moira tutted. ‘Now John, is it really worth the trouble? I don’t think an investment from the Rockefellers would have been sufficient to salvage that little netherworld.’

‘It won’t be too difficult to send the girl some tips and let her get on with it,’ Johnny said. ‘I was that kid once too, you know.’

Moira raised her eyebrows, but knew her husband was decided. She patted his arm as he stood up. ‘It’s your funeral, dear.’

Johnny opened up his laptop, barely registering that his phone still hadn’t rang with the good (or bad) news of Mr. Reyes. Stevie had already sent him an email: some pictures of the deeds, a backlog of annual reports, and an itemised list of her own rough ideas about what to do with the motel. Johnny read it again and again, an unidentifiable something stirring in his mind.

Moira, dressed to the nines in a sharply angled black suit and flipped-out red wig, strode into the kitchen from the bedroom. ‘John, we have ten minutes before we’re meant to depart! What on earth is holding your attention like this?’

‘Just give me five minutes, Moira, I’ll be ready.’ He opened up a reply box and began to type out an email for Stevie, filling it with PDFs of chapters from his book, links to business articles, and some suggestions for improvement re her own ideas.

Johnny talked Moira’s ear off all the way to the restaurant – which was disappointingly void of old friends and potential connections – and all the way back, itching to get back behind the keyboard.

‘Just picture it, Moira. We know for ourselves how much the place was lacking. Stevie could really have something special on her hands if she refurbishes the place and lines it up with the rest of the town’s, uh…charm.’

‘Is _charm_ an applicable term here, dear?’

‘And hey, who knows? One day business might take us – well, her – further afield, doing the same thing for other rundown locations across the country’s roads,’ Johnny went on, rushing for his laptop as soon as they turned the key in the door. ‘And it’s the first idea that doesn’t make me feel like I’m punching above my weight.’

Moira watched him as he concentrated, the familiar spark she so loved returning to his eyes for the first time in a year. Now that she thought about it, it was much, much more than a year since she’d seen her husband consumed by that fresh, humble passion for business.

Johnny looked up. ‘What?’

‘You really mean this, don’t you dear?’

Johnny shrugged. ‘It’s…worth a shot. It’s _something_. Mr. Reyes isn’t gonna call anytime soon, and I’ve read one article too many about how we’ve disgraced ourselves. Well, they’re only one corner of the world. And if they’ve already decided that we can’t do anything but fail, then I’m not gonna give them the satisfaction.’

‘Oh, John.’ Moira joined her husband at the table, clasping his shoulders.

Johnny patted her hand. ‘I just want the best for us, honey. You know that. I think we’d better zip up all these ideas of bouncing back and build this pyramid up from the bottom.’

Moira made a noise of what Johnny hoped was agreement. Johnny sent off another email in his increasingly speedy correspondence with Stevie, then turned around to hold Moira in an embrace. He pressed a kiss to her cheek.

‘I miss the kids, John,’ she said quietly.

‘I know, me too. Wherever they are, I hope they’re coming to the same realizations.’

* * *

The thin, salty air of the coast filled Alexis with a burst of energy. She squealed and held onto Jenna’s arm as they boarded _The Liesh Liner,_ Liesha’s poorly named and beautifully maintained superyacht.

‘Most of us have a cabin each, but some people are gonna have to share or crash out on the floor somewhere random. It’ll probably only be a one-night thing before we get to Miami Beach,’ Jenna explained.

 _‘You’ve_ got one all to yourself, Lex,’ Liesha said with a strange, charitable smile, like she was talking to a starving orphan who’d been taken in by rich parents.

A lot more invitees had met them at the dock. There were people getting onto the boat that Alexis had never seen before. A swarm of around seventy socialites were boarding alongside them, all chatting and fussing and greeting each other in screams. Alexis had kind of been swept up in it all, agreeing to whatever Jenna and Liesha decided to do. Not that she minded; it felt like wading into new territory all over again, all of this socializing and schmoozing. She was literally swimming in unchartered waters. With the party fully boarded and dispersed throughout the yacht, _The Liesh Liner_ set off with a blast of music and blaring lights.

The sea was stunning at this time of night, cut cleanly by the yacht’s passage and winking in the golden sunset. Alexis rested her arms over the balcony and watched St. Barth’s fall away behind her. Though they were states away, she felt a little relieved and homely that she’d be on the same continent as her parents and David again. She made a mental note to call them as soon as she got off.

‘Alexis, get over here! The party in the ballroom is starting.’

Alexis was startled from her spot by Ember’s voice. She was beckoning from the upper deck, so Alexis followed her all the way up and into the main body of _The Liesh Liner._

As it turned out, the majority of the seventy or so passengers had already got the memo about the party starting and were now in full revelry mode. Just like with the restaurant, Alexis was rendered speechless at the sight of the ballroom. It was lit by two chandeliers and adorned in a perfect purple-white-gold color scheme. The piece de resistance, a table of sweet foods that was the same size as Alexis’ bed at the motel, stood proud in the middle.

Alexis looked round to find that Ember was long gone, no doubt making her way to the sides of the most influential people in the room.

‘Oh my God, Alexis Rooooooose!’

_(‘Hey. Hey, Alexis. Who does this remind you of?’_

_David lifted his head but kept his eyes fixed on his book._

_‘Her voice is full of money. That it was. It was full of money – the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbal’s song of it…High in a white palace, the king’s daughter…’_

_‘Albany,’ Alexis and David said together. They laughed. It was the first laugh they’d shared since they’d come to Schitt’s Creek.)_

‘How are you?’ Albany said, already snapping pics with Alexis. Alexis jumped into action and moulded her lips into a pout, giggling at the dog filter that had popped up on her face.

‘I’m doing amazing, babe.’

‘There’s so much going on here, right? This party should attract a few big names. We have a photographer here from OK Magazine as well.’

‘What do you mean, big names? How is anyone else gonna get here?’

Albany snorted. ‘I mean on Insta, obviously. Khloe Kardashian commented on the photo that Canyon posted of the restaurant at St. Barth’s. Now we just need Kendall to interact then we’ll have the full set!’

Alexis did a little gasp, perching her fingers on Albany’s shoulder. ‘Mm, love that for you.’

‘Albany! Get your fat ass away from the sweets and hold my ring light for me!’

Albany’s face fell. She blew Alexis a final air kiss before trudging her way over to Klaire.

For some reason, Alexis found she couldn’t remember a single thing that had just been said. Something about social media and hunting for celebrity attention like collector’s cards. In the past year, Alexis had lost most of her tens of thousands of followers. She used to sit at the table in the motel and stare at her phone, the absence of buzzing and beeping making her feel a little empty inside until one day, it just didn’t. She picked up a magazine or did her hair or downloaded a game on her phone instead, and suddenly it had been a year since she’d thought about social media at all.

She could always get back into the swing of it. She could do this again, if this was what _back to normal_ meant.

Alexis scanned the room. She felt like a wild animal trying to reintegrate into a pack, feeding off the behavior of others. She watched Klaire take an angled photo of herself at the purple-colored chocolate fountain. Her tongue was stuck out next to the marshmallow in her hand. As soon as the picture was taken, she grimaced and wiped a stray drip of chocolate from her tongue before she pawned the marshmallow off on a caterer.

In front of Alexis stood the table that Albany had been dragged away from. It was laden with every kind of dessert imaginable, a mountain of fondant and macarons and delicate sugar decorations atop beautiful fruit cakes. In the middle stood a huge, rainbow, fibre optic tree, on the branches of which were hung vanilla cookies with melted candies in the middle like stained glass.

Klaire looked towards Alexis and gave her a wink. Alexis gave one back and looked nonchalantly towards the massifs of syrup and sweets. She took a quick picture of a cylindrical yellow cake covered in marzipan bees.

Then Klaire shouted, ‘Alexis! Get over here, bitch. I have an idea.’

Alexis scuttled over to join the small group that Klaire had corralled around her.

‘Okay, so I know Ember has that whole shit with the earrings and the mob going on, so when we get to Miami Beach we’re gonna have to split up, use different IDs for a while then we’ll all meet up again at this Indonesian spa retreat in, like, a month or something.’

Everyone nodded in agreement. Alexis looked round at everyone’s faces, desperate to find someone who was just as confused as her.

‘Alexis? What’s up? You look like that deer I hit in Iceland last spring,’ Klaire said.

‘Yeah, no, um, I’m great – it’s just…I don’t really have any of my old IDs on me? And I have no idea where I’m gonna stay. I’m not sure I can really afford to –’

 _Afford._ That wasn’t a word she was sure she’d ever said before Schitt’s Creek.

It had slipped out before she’d even thought about it. Alexis froze immediately, unsure whether she was imagining the smattering of shocked and pitied laughter that was bouncing around the circle of her friends. She felt her face burn like it had in Laurie Stephens’ stupid dining hall that felt far longer than just over three days ago. Klaire’s lip looked like it was about to spring out into a mocking pout, but she stopped herself.

Alexis was thankful that her phone pinged at that very moment. She buried her face in the light, pretending to concentrate hard.

 **twyla_sands commented on your post** : Yummy!! Buzzy bees, my third favorite insect 😊🐝 🍯 

Alexis’ gut churned with that paradox of warmth and guilt. She imagined Twyla liking the pic, thinking about cakes for a while, then maybe picking up a book and getting some coffee. And she wouldn’t post about any of it once. She was so easily pleased, so content with what she saw and didn’t see.

For a crazy moment, she considered calling Twyla. It was something about the sound of her voice, even though she’d only really heard it in the context of taking orders and exchanging pleasantries. It was a soothing presence that sanded down some of the edges of Alexis’ time in Schitt’s Creek, giving them an essential when they had nothing. It was a voice that fed them.

But Alexis looked round again, and realized she didn’t want to bring Twyla anywhere near these people on this boat. She decided to ring David instead.

* * *

Muffled by the pillow onto which it had been thrown, David’s phone rang and rang until it didn’t ring anymore. Had David been there, he would have picked up straight away and jammed the thing to his ear, then probably argued with Alexis about where she was or if she was safe.

But he wasn’t. The room was locked, the lights left on.

When David and Patrick had stopped off at the next available motel, Patrick had been oddly insistent about them getting two rooms. David assumed it was to do with the fact that they had been sat far too close for the past few days, griping about how the other chewed their food or stuttering over apologies when hands brushed over the lever. Even so, drink and music had brought them together once again, and that was how they ended up sitting cross-legged on Patrick’s single motel bed, sharing an earphone in the dark. The breeze through the open window was cool and soft.

‘This one was an early one I wrote,’ Patrick said quietly, clearing his throat a little. ‘I haven’t listened to them in a while. They seem sadder than I remember.’

David listened carefully. The songs were beautiful, every one of them making something feel more right for him. They plucked at the realms of his emotions, forcing him to start off a whole host of important internal conversations that he’d been pushing to the side for far too long. He looked at Patrick’s dark, tired eyes, and wondered what he had seen.

‘Hm. “You surround yourself with sounds, just to be sure you’re not alone”. That – that makes a lot of sense to me.’

Patrick nodded.

‘You think that’s what we’re doing here?’ David said, trying hard to sound like he was teasing. ‘Fighting over everything and revving the car just so something is there, filling the gaps?’

Patrick met his eye. David clenched for a moment in panic, then Patrick’s expression softened.

‘No, I don’t think so. I’m enjoying the quiet just as much.’

* * *

Alexis dropped her phone into her bag after ringing twice more, hoping that the group had forgotten her slip up by the time she returned. But when she looked up, they were nowhere to be seen.

In the brief time she had been trying to get through to David, it felt like something had shifted in the room. She half-expected the chandelier to flicker as though in a casino before the big chase in a cliché gangster movie.

‘Ember, what’s going on?’ Alexis said, having finally found someone that she recognised.

Ember was looking towards the door disgustedly. ‘How did they even get on the yacht? They must have had a speedboat or something and tracked us down, the weirdos.’

‘Wait, who –’

‘Get down, everyone get down! Now! Hands in the air!’

A familiar swirl of urgent fear started to make tracks in Alexis’ gut. Tied wrists and guns to heads and scraping wins at deadly pool games. No matter how offhanded and blasé she was about it, it didn’t stop her shaking for the rest of the day when someone put their hands over her eyes in greeting or there was a violent scene on TV.

Alexis crossed the room in two long, low strides and hunched herself under the table. Ember had managed to escape with her and was by her side. Though they barely knew each other, the two clutched onto each other’s hands and huddled themselves together as a troupe of huge, armed men trudged in, capturing three of the partygoers and tying them to chairs in the middle of the room.

Hidden and powerless, with neither context about the situation nor bribe money to help her, Alexis watched.

She was back, all right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- I spent far too much time converting nautical miles to make sure the trip from St. Barth's to Miami Beach actually /is/ just a one-night thing, lol.


	7. Hide Your Diamonds, Hide Yourself Under the Table

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- tw for use of guns and mentions of Alexis' trauma, which is something that was never brought up in the show but has always concerned me since it will absolutely be there given everything she's been through.

_How? How is this happening again?_

Alexis was at war with herself, huddled under the table. It was a while since she’d felt the yacht stop and had launched into fight or flight mode, and now time seemed to be slowly crawling back to meet them. The men – who even were they? Capo mafia men or something, if the conversations Alexis had picked up on were anything to go by – were still ransacking the ballroom. Ember and Calypso had been talking about stolen earrings in the car at St. Barth’s. And also about Bella Hadid. Or someone.

‘Ember, can you tell me what’s actually going on here?’ Alexis said in the lowest voice she could manage. ‘Something about Bella Hadid and earrings –’

Ember frowned. ‘What – no, Bella was a different story,’ she whispered. ‘This is still about earrings, but it’s a different person. They’re claiming I smuggled some away with me when I left Sicily last month, and they’ve had their eye on these specific earrings for ages. I think they’ve had some debt conflict with a liquor corporation heiress that they’ve never even met.’

‘What were they worth?’

‘Nothing special, just like…twenty.’

‘Is it really worth looting a whole yacht for twenty thousand-dollar earrings?’

Ember pouted. ‘Oh my God, you are _so_ cute. I’m dying. I meant twenty million, honey.’

As Ember patted at Alexis’ hair and clucked at her like she was a cute puppy, Alexis’ eyes scanned the room manically. Huge, beefy men were turning over heavy tables of food like they were shaking bedspreads. Three of the guests, presumably the other main suspects, were tied to chairs in the middle of the room.

And Klaire was _filming_ it.

Alexis felt anger flare inside her that none of them seemed to understand the gravity of the situation. These earrings were worth _twenty million dollars_. There were people in this world who would resort to murder to get their hands on 0.0005% of that amount.

She was still wondering how this was happening. How had she been having dinner parties with woodworkers and waitresses and rejecting the most twee and humble proposal known to man only a few weeks ago, and now she was back here fighting for her life again?

Alexis thought about how she’d been received in Schitt’s Creek. _Princess. Ditsy. Selfish._

Well, she’d show them. This is where she was clever. These weren’t unchartered waters after all.

Okay. Okay. She was doing this. She’d done it a million times before, willingly choosing to put herself at the risk of night terrors and a fear of airports because she was always the only one in her group of friends who had a fiber of wit.

All she needed was a phone and a confused, carefree voice that no one would recognise…

Twyla.

Alexis had said she didn’t want to drag her into this place. And she wasn’t. Not really. It was more like Twyla was dragging her out of it.

‘Ember, what was the person’s name? The one who owns the earrings.’

‘Sara Michelangelo, why?’

‘No reason.’

With an eye on the still-distracted capo, she pulled up Twyla’s contact and started to text her.

**Me**

Twy, remember those fun stories I used to tell you about my life and all the hostagey, Yakuza kind of stuff?

** Twyla from Cafe **

I do! Some of them were fun. Some of them sounded a little bit scary. Why?

Barely even thinking, Alexis texted Twyla a long script of things to say. She was only half sure they would align with the situation.

**Me**

I’m gonna need you to help me out here. When I say ANYTHING down the phone, I want you to respond with the next line of the script.

**Twyla from Cafe**

Ooh, okay! My mom did this with me once. I had to pretend I was out the house because that was the only way her new boyfriend would come over. I never really knew why.

I’ll wait here until you call me! 😊

Steeling herself with a quick, heavy breath, Alexis came out from under the table. As expected, she was immediately accosted by the racking of guns and the gasps of the partygoers.

Alexis shook off her last nerves with a flip of her hair, plastering on her most carefree look.

‘Okay, do you want to put your little weapons away and actually hear me talk to Miss Michaelanglo herself?’ Alexis said.

As intense as the situation was, Alexis was still very aware of Klaire’s laughter. She put the sound out of her mind, replacing it with prayers that Ember was right and that no one had actually met Sara Michelangelo, therefore her voice would be a mystery to them.

‘Hello?’

‘Hey, Sara!’

‘Alexis! Hope you’re having a good night. I bet you look gorg. You always do.’

‘Umm…’ Alexis clammed up for a few long, long seconds, almost forgetting the script.

‘Oh! Quick q…this is really random, but do you ever wear those earrings much recently? You know, those old heirlooms you have? I don’t see you with them anymore.’

‘I’m just in my room, getting ready to go out.’

Shit. Alexis had got it wrong. Twyla was sticking to the script, like Alexis had told her to. The nearest man eyed her suspiciously.

Alexis laughed it off, twirling a piece of hair round her finger. ‘Um, girl, didn’t you hear? I was talking about your earrings.’

‘Oh, my earrings! I didn’t hear you there. Yeah, I’m wearing them right now!’

‘Aw, cute! I bet they’ll go great with your dress.’

‘They do! It’s blue. The one you gave to me!’

Real Alexis, not Friends-With-Sara-Michelangelo Alexis, smiled. Twyla was going off script too. She was giving this Sara a degree of wholesomeness that Alexis was positive Sara absolutely did not have, even though she’d never met her. She bet Sara Michelangelo would never wear a hand-me-down from her friend.

‘Okay, well, I’ll talk to you later tonight. I promise.’

‘Bye!’

Alexis clicked her phone off and stared the men down. She might have flipped her hair in their faces if she was certain it wouldn’t get her killed.

They checked in with each other and marched off the yacht and into their smaller speedboat, their mission diverted. Now that they knew where the earrings were, they wouldn’t be bothering Ember again. The guests burst into a hysterical chatter that lasted for all of five minutes before the normal routine resumed.

Alexis stood in the middle of it all, feeling pale and shaken. She was just coming to terms with how easily she could have been shot. What if they’d done it as soon as she came out from under the table, without even giving her a chance?

She looked around for the people she’d arrived with. At first, her eyes landed on Klaire. Stood in the exact same place she had been since the capodecina arrived.

‘Alexis, look,’ Klaire said as Alexis approached her. ‘Kendall Jenner responded to my story that has you in it with a little fire emoji.’

Alexis felt like she’d turned to stone.

‘Wait. You didn’t stop filming?’

Klaire looked at Alexis like she’d just tried to explain every principle of quantum physics backwards.

‘Um, what was I supposed to do?’

‘I don’t know, maybe _help me?’_

Alexis turned to the entire group, who were either fawning over the minute of attention from Kendall Jenner or half-listening to the conversation.

‘None of you did anything while I stood there in front of those _armed_ mafia men, making up some story on the spot! I barely even know what’s going on or why they were here!’

Klaire shrugged. ‘I mean, it’s over now. It was cool what you did, I guess.’

Then, Klaire’s smug face blurred behind a sheen of angry tears. Alexis ducked her head and turned around before Klaire could see her crying.

She looked around the ballroom. Looked at the people who were clicking and pouting and clinging to the lights of the room like moths, their presence a sea that was even more cold and suffocating than the one outside.

Another excerpt from the same book David had read to her, the one where they’d laughed about Albany’s voice, snuck its way to the front of Alexis’ mind:

_They’re a rotten crowd. You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together._

In a lightning flash moment that caught Klaire off guard, Alexis grabbed Klaire’s phone and stalked off with it.

‘What – hey! Alexis, give it back, I’m on a live video!’

Alexis didn’t give it back, not until she was within arm’s reach of the desserts table. She might have gone cliff base jumping in Norway and been blessed by a shaman in the Ryukyu Islands, but nothing, _nothing_ would ever be more satisfying than plonking Klaire’s precious mobile deep into a pile of the whipped cream and chocolate of the biggest cake in the room.

Alexis got out of there quickly, ignoring the clamoring hands and accusations from Klaire that she was a pathetic tagalong. One she’d reached her cabin, she got ready for bed quickly and perfunctorily, exhaling as she settled down onto her bed with a latte from the complimentary station in her cabin. Then, as promised, she called Twyla. But just before she did, she removed the ‘from Cafe’ from her contact name.

‘Alexis, hi! Whatever you were doing sounded pretty intense, are you okay?’

‘Yeah, I’m fine, Twy. I’ll explain it all soon, but I just wanted to say how sorry I am for, I don’t know, using you, I guess. You didn’t deserve to be dragged into it.’

‘What do you mean, using me? It was fun! I’ve been trying to think up all the different possibilities for what could have been going on. It’s nice to be included in an Alexis Rose adventure!’

Despite how warm and melty Twyla’s innocence made Alexis feel, that hit her with a pang of envy. She would trade anything to be back in that bubble of safety again. One thing about Schitt’s Creek that Alexis could depend on was that she wasn’t going to get kidnapped round any corner.

‘I should let you rest, but I hope you had a good night. I wish I was there.’

‘No…’ Alexis faltered, her throat tightening with a hard lump. ‘No, you don’t. I wish I was _there,_ Twyla.’

‘Alexis, are you okay?’

Though Twyla couldn’t see, Alexis shook her head, clutching tighter to her warm mug as the tears began to fall. ‘No. I’m really not. Can you – can you stay on the line for a little while? I think I have a couple of choices to make.’

* * *

After their quiet moment the night before, Patrick assumed the next twenty-four hours would be a bit easier. He was wrong, though, when it turned out they were apparently intent on ticking the last box of Things They’d Argued About: money.

‘Patrick, I’m being serious. Do you understand how much saving this money means to me?’ David said.

‘Obviously I do! I was just – I don’t know, giving us another option. It’s exactly what we did last night.’

‘Yes, and last night that motel was far too expensive for us. Especially since we didn’t even use one of the rooms.’

Patrick flushed scarlet and looked away from David, even though there was no reason. It wasn’t as if anything had happened. David had just got a bit too cozy on Patrick’s bed and they’d fallen asleep on opposite sides of it, still connected by an earphone wire.

In his periphery, he could still see David’s hand resting on his leg. It was tanned and veined, his long, slender fingers tapping his thigh in irritation. He tried very hard not to look at the thigh, because he’d made that mistake once before and almost run them off the road as he got lost in the miles of him –

‘Patrick, are you even listening to me?’

‘Yes!’ Patrick snapped, because it was an easy thing to do. ‘I hear you. We’ll get one room, and it’ll be fine.’

David settled himself back, satisfied with his victory. Patrick couldn’t help wondering how far the possibilities of that victory stretched in David’s mind.

They pulled into the motel that David booked on his phone at 8pm. The receptionist looked up and gave them a too-wide smile as they approached the desk.

‘Ah, you must be Mr and Mr Hays, booked for the double suite in Room 9! Honeymooners, aren’t you?’ she said.

Patrick cleared his throat, shooting David a panicked look. ‘Um – no, no, that’s no us. We’re just – we’re not – we are not moneyhooning – I mean, honeymooning. Nope.’

David’s lips pursed in what Patrick had learned was an effort not to smile. ‘We’re in Room 6 under Rose, thanks.’

When they were climbing the stairs to reach their room, Patrick tried to break his own tension by speaking up.

‘So, Mr and Mr Hays are honeymooning _here_ , huh? Place your bets, when do you think they’re gonna get divorced?’

‘Give them three to five business weeks.’

David slotted the key into the door and opened it. Patrick had been starting to feel okay about sharing the bed, but actually seeing the thing in all of its sunken, unflatteringly avocado-colored glory made it all the more real.

‘David, are you sure you’re okay with this?’

Patrick side-eyed David as they deposited their overnight bags on opposite sides of the motel room. His tone definitely sounded much more like _am I okay with this?_

Obliviously, David scoffed. ‘I shared a motel room with my sister for an entire year. One more night in one isn’t gonna hurt.’

‘It’s not that, it’s that –’ Patrick looked around quickly and lowered his voice. ‘The one bed thing.’

David’s eyes shone as he laughed his rare, beautiful laugh. Patrick had heard it four times in the past four days – not that he’d been counting – and he felt like even that many times was a privilege in the grand scheme of David’s life. His stomach swooped.

‘You sound like a Puritan. We’ve been sat side by side in a car for over ninety hours. How much different can it be?’

* * *

Stood in the bar that neighboured the motel, leaning on the counter as Patrick watched David dance between languid sips of wine, the question was finally answered.

Very different. Very different indeed.

Patrick looked at his phone, finding that the usual missed calls from Rachel didn’t fill him with the same pang of guilt as usual. It was nearing one in the morning.

David danced slowly, leisurely, his hands snaking above his head, hips swaying to the beat. Patrick was certain that the low, pure twang of a [Chris Stapleton song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zAThXFOy2c) wasn’t something David would have ever let himself lean into so confidently in a past life, but both of them were bordering on wasted at this point. Now that Patrick thought about it, that probably meant the spiralling movements that David seemed to be making were more down to the fact that Patrick’s vision was almost doubled and stuttering in half-time.

Still, he’d be lying if he said the sight didn’t send sharp chills down his spine. Twisted at his navel.

Suddenly, David held out a hand.

‘Come on,’ he slurred, ‘Dance wi’me.’

Patrick tried to protest. He adopted what he thought was the same annoyed tone with which he’d consistently addressed David over the past few days, but it came out as a pathetic grumble.

‘No…’ he replied, his voice thin and shrill. ‘Don’t wanna.’

‘Why?’

‘Can watch you better fr’m here.’

Maybe his vision was just doing the rounds again, or maybe David stopped. Either way, David’s face was suddenly more in focus. He smirked, the twitch of his lips drawing lines up to his eyes, dark and glittering like onyx. 

‘Hmmm…I don’t think that’s true,’ David teased. ‘Think y’ can see me much better from _here.’_

In one smooth movement David slid across the bar to where Patrick was stood, almost upsetting a patron’s drink in the process. He stared at Patrick for half a second before his attention was drawn to a small bowl of complimentary popcorn. Patrick’s fluster was momentarily replaced with endearment at the pure joy that lit up on David’s face.

David took one between his index and middle finger and placed it gently between his teeth. Patrick watched every move, but only because he was unable to look away.

‘Want one?’ David said.

He didn’t wait for an answer; instead, he pulled Patrick to him and wrapped both arms around him before transferring the popcorn to Patrick’s mouth.

Patrick wrestled with a million thoughts, most of them trying to process the fact that David had closed his eyes to do that and that his arms were wrapped so tight that Patrick couldn’t escape. It hadn’t quite sobered him into seriousness, though, because he reached for his drink and drew David’s attention to it.

‘Your turn,’ he said quietly. David smiled and bit his lip.

‘Oh, is it?’

Patrick took a sip in response, but didn’t swallow, and before he knew what he was doing their mouths had clashed together. He felt David’s tongue flicker, chasing the beer round his mouth, and press firm, determined hands into the small of Patrick’s back.

Maybe he was just drunk. Yep, that had to be it. Maybe he was just hot and heady and stupid with drink. Nonetheless, he caught the same musky, woody scent of David’s cologne that he’d been smelling ever since they met in the service station and his body convulsed with urgent, clumsy desire.

‘Get the key,’ one of them slurred. Patrick wasn’t sure who.

‘What – now?’

‘Yes, now – God, now. I need – I – let’s go. Now.’

He kissed David again and his mouth once more responded fervently. He tasted the sweetness of David’s wine then buried his face into David’s neck briefly, before taking his hand and leading them into the lukewarm midnight air.

As they entered the room and closed the door behind them, Patrick barely had time to register his creeping sobriety. Nor the fact that he was choking with a passion that frightened him like nothing else for this proud, pedantic man who had crashed into his life four days ago and now didn’t seem to be moving anywhere outside the realms of it. And Patrick didn’t want him to.

David had him crowded up against the door, his movements less drunk and more sure by the second, all scraping teeth and tongue and awkward, hungry hands. It was clear from the get-go that David was very much taking the lead here, and Patrick was more than okay with that. Though David had already kissed all the mental energy out of him and therefore he had no room left to think deeply, Patrick knew that all he wanted right now was for David to bring back to life what Patrick himself had buried. He wanted to let go. He wanted the touch of his skin.

In an uncoordinated series of movements both were flat on the bed, shakily pushing back items of clothing until both were laid bare and their skin was connected again. There was so much delight in what Patrick saw that he thought he might need years to appreciate it all, but right now he was driven by a frantic haste.

_Those years might come. Just let this happen._

Patrick felt hands on him, felt David’s lips kiss places that no human had ever kissed before, felt things he hadn’t known were real. And he thought, for a short sliver of a moment, about how free he was here, breathing raggedly and pinned down by the most beautiful man he had ever seen. No one perceived him. No one told him he couldn’t do it. _This is how it should have started._

Patrick arched himself up rhythmically to the pattern of David’s skilful hands and then finally, _finally_ felt some real contact, though he realized with a soft exhale that it was not what he had been expecting. It was his tongue; hot, gentle pressure flickering over and inside him, something about the connection reminding Patrick of a key. The shocking, new sensation made Patrick unravel with a sigh, losing himself in the tingling knot of pressure building in his lower back.

In a way he had never been connected with anyone before, Patrick seemed to know exactly what David wanted and vice versa.

‘Do you – do you have –’

‘In my bag, yep.’

David groped blindly for his bag. The momentary loss of his touch was cold, and Patrick thought he might die if he never felt it again beyond this night.

He was beginning to breathe fast again. David was teasing him now, kissing up his ankles all the way to his thighs as he prepped him with cool, slick fingers. The touch was too much and nowhere near enough. David was going agonizingly slowly, resting his cheek at the places he’d kissed before beginning again on the other leg.

David shushed him gently. ‘Just a few more seconds. You’re nearly ready.’

‘Please, David, please _now,_ please –’

That spurred him into action. Patrick felt the rough, horribly-colored sheet go taut beneath him as David straightened up and guided himself into Patrick. Patrick heard him sigh and take the rumpled sheet between his teeth and bite down, hard. The most rational part of Patrick’s head – a very small portion at this point – felt a little spark of pride at that. David had been reluctant to even set his bag down on these sheets when they’d arrived.

Patrick settled himself, as luxuriously as he could in a $35 motel room, on the feeling of David’s strong grip and increasingly intense thrusts. The sensation rolled around the hot, raw edges of him; it filled him with a kind of tight heat that he’d never experienced before, not with anyone, but knew if he let himself go any further in life without it then things would be even worse than before. If he let _David_ go, then he might as well damn himself for choosing not to further the greatest plot point in his life so far.

He wrapped his legs around David, capturing his lips in a kiss that stole all the air from his lungs. It was urgent and rushed, yet still felt patient. As though they’d been waiting for this since they’d met and argued, since they’d bickered over foods in the supermarket, since David had cried in the car. It might not have been the ideal conclusion, but it was second only to Patrick meeting David and doing all of this a long, long time ago.

He heard David cry out and felt a surge inside him, the final snap of his hips sending Patrick coursing over the edge at the same time. As the shock and intimacy of what they had done settled in, Patrick shuddered like he had when David had wrapped his arms around him in the bar, only longer, fiercer, in a way that made him lose contact with the world.

When he had recovered enough to open his eyes, David pulled out of him gently and rolled off to the other side of the bed. His arm was half-open as if he was waiting for Patrick to crawl into it. Neither of them spoke. Both were quite still. From outside came the muffled music of the bar at the peak of its night.

Tentatively, almost shyly, David ran his fingers over Patrick’s shoulder blades and the small curve of vertebrae that protruded from his back, then ghosted over the soft hairs on the nape of his neck. Patrick took David’s hand and kissed the knuckles. He chanced a look into his eyes, worried about what he might see there, and found them still shining, still glittering.

_God, how are they so bright? How are you so bright?_

‘What, my eyes?’ David said.

Patrick realized with a burst of embarrassment that he’d said that out loud. He made to stutter out an apology, but David smiled so fondly that Patrick laughed and curved his head into the crook of David’s neck. He was safe here. He could say as stupid a thing as he wanted.

‘Yes, your eyes. They’re beautiful. You’re beautiful.’

They lay, amazed and unsure, for a long time in silence, until the sun began to filter weakly through the grimy motel window. Until they were both asleep, clasped together and thinking peacefully about the start of things, standing at the ascent of a road so full and so wonderful they could barely begin to imagine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- aaaand there we go! 3/4 of the Rose family are on their way back to Schitt's Creek, each for different reasons. Only David left to go...
> 
> \- this is the very first time I've written anything NSFW and I'm very nervous about putting it out here, so any comments and feedback would really be appreciated!


	8. Motel Phones and Broken Bones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're nearly at the end of the road! I did wrestle with this chapter a lot, but I'm quite happy with the way things are ending for them all :)

David was awoken by what he thought was his alarm, but it turned out to be his phone ringing. He rolled over and pushed his limbs around the bed in pursuit of it, then the shock of cold as the bedspread fell off reminded him where he was.

It lay on the dirty motel floor like a globular swamp. David picked it up and there lay his phone, buzzing and lit up by his dad’s name. He was torn between two minds, one that wanted to pick it up immediately and the other that wanted to turn around and look at the still-sleeping man behind him.

He was probably cold. David edged backwards and picked up his phone with his feet, determined not to look at Patrick as he placed the bedspread gently back over him because if he looked, then he knew he wouldn’t be able to look away. He had a habit of that. Many a morning he’d spent in New York and London and Barcelona worrying into the frown lines of a lover, trying hard to see into their thoughts but only managing to plant his own insecurities behind their sleeping eyes. If they woke up, it was usually to greet him with a ‘what’re you looking at, you creep?’

David performed a tricky balancing act with the phone on his ankle and tossed it deftly into his hand, accepted the call on its final ring and whispered into the mic.

‘Hello?’

‘David, is that you?’

‘Yes–’ David twisted around to make sure he hadn’t woken Patrick up. The pale freckled arm that he caught a glimpse of was still. ‘–Yes, of course it’s me. Who else would it be?’

‘I was just checking, son. I’ve called Alexis in the past and ended up negotiating with some military state warlord for fifteen minutes.’

Johnny was trying to sound light-hearted, but David could hear the pain and reproach in his voice. He immediately regretted snapping at him. If anything, he felt a hot rush of relief at the sound of his father. A hot rush that threatened to spill over as tears if he didn’t say something fast.

‘What’s going on, why are you calling me?’ he murmured. Another twist. No movements. He peeked at Patrick’s face. _Shit._ He was still real. Still beautiful.

‘I just wanted to let you know that there’s been a change of plans,’ Johnny said. ‘This might sound absurd to you, but your mother and I are going to, um…go back to Schitt’s Creek for a while. I think I’ve found a possible business venture there that I don’t wanna let go to waste. One million dollars is nothing to these men. I – I guess _I’m,_ um…’

The line went quiet, but David could fill in the blanks. _I guess_ I’m _nothing to them._

‘Um…okay,’ David said quietly. ‘I don’t – I don’t know what I’m doing, or really where, but…I want you to know that I’m safe. And I…’

David wanted to continue, but there was a hand stroking down his back.

It wasn’t suggestive or impatient, as David knew hands on bare backs to be. It wasn’t coaxing David back down to where he was useful. He turned around and there was Patrick, bare and open and soft with sleep, the little fat on his stomach bunched in rolls from his awkward sitting position. David looked at him, and he had no idea what Patrick had seen in his eyes, why he thought they were so beautiful. They were just the way David saw things. What Patrick had…now, those were _eyes._ They gave just as much as they took in, not quite glimmering like David’s but burning slow, melting and pooling like Werther’s butter candies in a pan. It hurt David, hurt him like he’d tried to drink the molten sugar straight from the pot. Nothing had ever probed him, bore into him so deeply.

And his father had hung up, because he thought David was gone.

‘Everything okay?’ Patrick mouthed like the phone was still on. David braced the heels of his palms on the edge of the mattress and slid himself backwards onto the bed, stretching his legs out like a cat.

‘I think so,’ David said. ‘That was my dad.’

Patrick gave the quietest little gasp, the smallest shimmy of his shoulders. Ever the joker. _‘The_ Johnny Rose? And you didn’t let me speak to him?’

David couldn’t help the smile that was so wide he was sure he’d be able to recognize it in between the rest of the wrinkles in his seventy-year-old face one day. He leaned in, resting a large, warm palm over Patrick’s jaw and kissing him soundly, their breath sour and stale but still there, still sure. Then Patrick pulled back with a wince, dabbing at his temple.

‘Well, now I’ve remembered just how much we drank last night,’ Patrick said. Then his face fell, a millisecond after David’s heart had plummeted to his stomach. It sounded like a damning implication of missteps and regret.

‘No, no – that is absolutely not what I meant, I promise. It wasn’t that bit. I don’t regret it.’

And David looked out of the window, and David believed him. He believed him so he kissed him again, gentling Patrick onto his back and dragging his hands softly down the dappled plains of his skin.

‘Mm, and you must be tired from all that driving, as well,’ David murmured into his collarbone. Patrick sighed in agreement. ‘Let me take over for a while.’

Patrick sighed in apparent agreement, then whined at the idea. David still had him pinned down. He squirmed luxuriously beneath his touch.

‘Hm…no. I wanna drive you. Take you wherever you want to go.’

David didn’t know how to respond to that without crying, so he laughed instead. ‘I think you’re a little too under the influence for that right now, Patrick. If only you kept a breathalyser test in the car like my sister does.’

Patrick chuckled low in his chest and pulled David back down to him. To have Patrick, warm and solid, separating himself and the mattress was a wonderful thing, but David was stuck thinking about Alexis. He let Patrick kiss him for a few more seconds, then must have stalled because Patrick pulled away, landing a flat palm on David’s chest.

‘Everything okay?’

David leaned into the touch of Patrick’s hand, feeling his own heartbeat vibrating through Patrick’s carpals. He shook his head.

‘I don’t know.’

With Patrick’s help, David rolled off him, but not too far. Almost instinctively, as if there was any more distance to possibly close between them, David curled into Patrick’s side.

‘I don’t know,’ he said again, because he truly, truly didn’t.

‘Okay. So what _do_ you know?’

‘I…’ David shifted under the weight of the uncomfortable question, one that he knew was phrased gently to help him understand the answer to the former. ‘I know that I feel lost. And being literally lost isn’t going to help things, as nice as this is. I know that I miss my parents and I feel like shit for the things I said and did to them. I’m worried about my sister because she’s probably got herself caught up in some international border struggle or deadly casino game. I want to go home. I know that I can’t because I’m homeless. Literally.’

There was wetness on Patrick’s chest. David brushed at his cheeks, the realization that yes, the other question had been answered, knotting in his throat in a hard lump. ‘So no, everything’s not okay. It’s shit. And I don’t know what to do.’

Patrick carded a firm hand through David’s thick hair and held him steady.

‘Let me drive, David. Please,’ he said.

David nodded. ‘Okay. I just…we need a few minutes. And we’re both definitely still unfit to drive.’

‘I need a breathalyser test, right?’ Patrick smirked. ‘Maybe I can just blow into your face and you can see if you smell the alcohol.’

‘No way, your breath stinks right now.’

Patrick barked out in shocked laughter, somehow pushing David away and pulling him closer at the same time.

‘Well, it wasn’t as bad as the time you farted a day into the journey and wouldn’t admit to it,’ Patrick said slyly.

‘I did _not!_ Did you hear anything? No!’

‘Silent but violent, David.’

‘It was the _farm.’_

‘Ah yes, the famous Highway 7036 pig farm.’

 _‘You’re_ a pig.’

* * *

Two pints of water, four cups of coffee and several aspirin later, David and Patrick were once again coursing down the road, the journey less endless and jagged at the edges. David stole glances at Patrick when he could, only to find him already smirking. David reached over and placed a firm hand on Patrick’s thigh and squeezed.

‘You’re gonna make me have to pull over in a minute if you keep doing that,’ he said, the smile never leaving his lips or his eyes. Cheeky.

‘And would that be such a bad thing?’ David teased.

‘Well, if we want to get you to where you wanna go, then I suppose it would be, yes.’

‘Hm. And what about you?’

Patrick made as though he hadn’t heard the question.

‘Sorry, what was that?’ he rushed, a moment later. David wasn’t buying it.

‘I said, what about you. Where are you going. After you drop me off, where are you going.’ He said it firmly, so Patrick wouldn’t be able to miss it.

Bad mistake. Patrick’s face grew taut, and a little pale. His knuckles whitened on the steering wheel like they had when Rachel called him, whom David had since learned all about. He had started an apology, but then his phone rang again. Patrick deflated with relief. David didn’t, because it was Alexis. That was the second time in a day. They’d never even met Patrick, but they were already barging in on David’s moments with him. _This fucking family._ He thought it with no malice, no consequence; no, after almost a week of drifting like an open wound through the concrete veins of his homeland, David realized he felt nothing but a deep, broken love for them that he wanted above any want in his life to mend in between the shacks of a rundown town.

‘Alexis?’ David said.

There was a sniffle down the end of the line.

‘D-David, where are you?’ Alexis whimpered. She sounded so little, like she was eleven and her ex-best friend Natasha had gotten her in trouble with the cops for the first time.

‘I’m on the road…Alexis, why? What’s happened?’

‘I – they were all shouting stuff at me when I got off the boat, really mean stuff, and I just – I don’t know, _ran_ , but not literally ‘cause my heels are like, super nippy right now –’

‘Alexis, where are you?’ David said firmly.

‘I don’t know, David. Northeast somewhere. I got this cheap one-way plane from Miami to Toronto because I didn’t know what else to do. Then I got a cab, and all my things started falling out of my bag so I got distracted and the cab just kept driving and it racked up to like $400 so I just stopped him at this random service station and _ugh,_ I’m so dirty right now…’

‘Can you just – share your location? I’ll see what I can do.’

‘Where even are you right now? What did you _do_ after you snapped and ran away –’

_‘I said I’ll see what I can do.’_

David huffed irritably and hung up. Part of him wanted to leave any explanations, any justifications and complaints and woes to be settled in person. Part of him just wanted his sister back.

Having heard Alexis’ generously-volumed tirade very clearly, Patrick pulled over into the nearest passing place.

‘Has she texted you yet?’

David nodded at the little red bubble next to his Messages. ‘Mmhm. Yup. She’s – oh God, she’s only two hours away. Patrick, we need to go to her. I don’t know which direction it’s in, I don’t care.’

Patrick took David’s phone and peered closely at the location. His eyebrows looked like they were doing a course of Ninja Warrior as they weaved and ducked on his forehead through a million different emotions.

‘You can’t be serious. This can’t be real.’

‘What? What?’ David said shrilly, taking the phone back. ‘Is she in a crack den, or something?’

David looked. Then he looked again. Their eyes met and David and Patrick dissolved into peals of hysterical, ridiculous laughter, so hard and helpless that it took them more than a few tears and several minutes to even be able to speak again. As soon as he had the competence, Patrick shifted the gear, drove them straight for half a mile before flicking the indicators at the intersection and taking a right U-turn, like he had time and time again, apparently.

‘Patrick.’

‘David.’

‘Tell me honestly.’

‘I don’t know if I can say it.’

‘Have we been driving in circles this whole time? _Literally_ driving in circles? And we’re about to pass that fucking McDonald’s again, like we probably have about fifteen times?’

Patrick just shook his head. Not at the question, but in an attempt to accept the stupid, stupid news.

‘We’re so stupid. God, we’re such fucking idiots.’

It took them about half an hour of the journey to finally calm down, the high, bubbling amusement settling into a bite of sweetness that neither man would dare vocalize. They’d been too distracted these past five days by…what was it? Nope, couldn’t have been the person sat next to them. No way. They hated each other. They’d sworn it through and through until it all came unravelling last night, and they realized that they’d been lying the whole time.

After the small smiles and briefly interlaced fingers had subsided, the air was full again with the discomfort of the end of the road. That was what David had been scared of, really, this whole time. What might happen if they finally got out of the car. He felt like his body might go brittle and crumble on the highway if he tried to face up to anything that had happened last week.

‘What’s going on in that head?’ Patrick said.

David shuffled in his seat. His legs were starting again with their stiff protests; no matter what, he really would have to get out of this car before long, for nothing if not the mercy of his calves and the base of his spine.

‘I’m just…thinking,’ David said. ‘About all the things I’m sure I’ve told you by now.’

Patrick tilted his head to the side, raising a palm momentarily from the steering wheel. It was placid and a bit paternal. ‘Well, it’s gonna hurt, David. I know you know that already. If you’ve ever broken a bone, it’s probably kind of like that. The skin gets all, all swollen and purple before it heals. Hurts like a bitch.’

David rolled in his lips and nodded. ‘I broke my arm in two places in Cyprus when I was twenty-six. I got bucked off the end of a speedboat and landed on a buoy.’

Patrick hissed through his teeth. ‘Yikes. Sounds worse than my little cracks and sprains, that’s for sure.’

David imagined Patrick hurting himself, sputtering in the dust of a sports arena while worried teammates and bustling school nurses herded round him like a village. He bet Patrick never complained.

And then, because he couldn’t stop himself, David said, ‘They say that’s the first sign of civilisation, you know. A healed bone. One you can tell has been broken by the little splinters in the skeleton. I took a palaeontology test course in college and they let us see the oldest bones they had. Way back when, humans would leave other humans to die when their pain became too much of a burden for the tribe, but a healed bone was evidence that they’d stopped moving nomadically. Someone sat with them and cared for them, wrapped them in fur, gave them water. Bones can show you the first time that humans made the distinction between surviving and living, and ergo…civilisation.’

Patrick was silent. The long stretch of road ahead meant he could look at David for a long time without worrying about the driving.

‘Sorry,’ David said. ‘I know I ramble, and it probably doesn’t make any sense –’

‘You’re really clever, you know that?’

‘What?’

‘You. You’re just about the cleverest person I’ve ever met.’

David’s eyes softened, but he snorted self-deprecatingly. ‘Well, now you tell me.’

‘What do you mean, now?’

‘You’re only saying that to make up for tearing down all my comments for the past week.’

Patrick smiled. ‘I stand corrected. Also, I think you just answered your own question.’

‘And what question was that?’

‘Oh, I don’t know, probably something like “am I making the right decision?” “What’s gonna happen when I get out the car?” “What’ll happen when I get in a car again after this?”’

Bang on the mark, all of them. David thought he might love him.

‘And – and what’s the answer?’ David croaked, because he couldn’t hold on much longer.

‘You can’t walk life back into a broken bone.’

The first tears fell. ‘Do you think that’s what we’re doing?’

Patrick made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob. ‘I think we’re certainly having a real go at it.’

There was a moment of silence. Then, ‘where’s your civilisation, David?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Where do you need to go to heal? Where’s your shelter?’

‘I think you already know the answer to that,’ David choked.

Patrick nodded. His own tears were coming thick and fast. ‘Let me take you there. I’ll be there. If – if you want me to, that is. I just…I’m not ready for this to end yet. I want to be there for you while you heal.’

‘You don’t want to see all of that.’

It was Patrick’s turn to crack. But he cracked in the way David had always expected him to, soft and warm and earnest, like something freshly baked.

‘David Rose, you’ve shown me every broken bit of you in the past week. And I’ve shown you every bit of me. The distance between us in this car has felt longer and longer every time you’ve opened your mouth. Let me reach out now. We can…we can put it all back together, I know we can.’

And they pulled over, then, because David had needed him to and Patrick knew it. As they clasped each other in a tearful, urgent kiss, David thought he might spend the rest of his life knowing nothing more than what Patrick needed, and that would be a life well spent.

Then, for the third time that day, the Rose family interrupted them. Seeing Alexis’ name on the screen again, most likely to screech at them for taking so long, David felt something slot into place. He wasn’t sure if it was Patrick or his family that had been the final puzzle piece, but it didn’t matter. He was complete.

* * *

Having Alexis in the car had been absurd and quiet. They’d barely spoken, except for Alexis filling them in on her latest adventure in an uncharacteristically straightforward way. There was the hour back past Laurie Stephens’, then five more hours in the car before they reached Schitt’s Creek in several stops and starts and middle fingers pointed at the Stephens mansion. They left the metal hulk of the old car to rust at the service station.

As if Patrick had measured the gas refill perfectly, the car ran out of steam almost as soon as they passed the sign. Patrick raised his eyebrows at it.

‘Is that –’

‘It’s his sister,’ David and Alexis said, in tired unison.

David directed Patrick towards the motel, where he had a gut-deep suspicion that his parents would be waiting in the reception. It wasn’t like there was anywhere else in the town that they’d quite claimed for themselves. Yet.

Finally, the car croaked to a halt, and David felt his very first wave of carsickness just before he stepped _out_ of the vehicle for the last time, which was weird. But when his parents opened the door of the motel and stepped out as nervously as they were stepping in snow, David knew what it was. He also, really, had no idea what it was. It was apologies, it was anger, it was fear, it was love, it was a backlog of every emotion he should ever have felt towards these three people that David swore he would never not give the time of day to ever again.

He was bone tired and he probably smelled, but he really didn’t care. Not when all three pairs of arms had him tight, tighter than he’d ever been held before, in a protective, sobbing, grip of a hug, the silent words exchanged far exceeding their usual levels of communication as though they’d skipped several leagues of life and knew exactly what they wanted.

‘Never again,’ was all Johnny said. ‘Never again.’

David turned his head, like he had in the motel bed just that morning. Patrick was stood there, leaning against the car, his arms crossed and watching them like he was reading the last chapter of a story David had weaved him.

Or perhaps, Patrick thought, as David rejoined his side and introduced him with warm fondness, as the sun fell down to meet them and he could see the mauve and golden fields that David had illustrated for him one night, as the world took a deep breath in and out and all the wrong doors closed behind him, perhaps it was just the first.


	9. The Annual Trip

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Thanks so much for reading! I've really enjoyed this fun fic and hope to write more like it in the future. Bon voyage :)

* * *

12.01 PM

70°F

Mild

Now Playing: “L-O-V-E” by Nat King Cole

* * *

‘Seriously, Patrick? Seriously? When you told me you’d updated the playlist, I thought you meant it was going to be full of new music.’

‘Nope, just…updated.’

‘You cheesy bastard.’

‘Oh, _shit!_ The cheese! I didn’t pick up the latest order from Heather!’

‘What.’

‘David, I was getting really excited for the trip and it just slipped my mind!’

‘And you couldn’t have remembered that three hours ago when we set off?!’

‘Well, you didn’t say cheesy three hours ago and remind me, did you?’

‘Whatever. You’re not getting any of my McDonald’s this time.’

‘Well, it wouldn’t be an anniversary road trip if we didn’t bicker about something.’

‘Ugh, just drive.’

‘And this is a road trip, after all.’

‘Just drive, Patrick!’

* * *

13.12 PM

75°F

Mild & Sunny

Now Playing: “Take on Me” by a-ha

* * *

‘You know this song was playing when Stevie asked Twyla to dance for the first time?’

‘What, at our wedding?’

‘Yup. She never shuts up about it. It’s disgusting.’

‘Ah, let them live. I think it’s cute.’

‘What, to ask your girlfriend to dance for the first time to the backdrop of a chewy 80s synth pop track that sounds like it was written by Silver Surfer on speed?’

‘Your analogies mess with my head sometimes.’

‘I have to admit, Twyla dances cute.’

‘Cute? She looked a bit chaotic. She nearly knocked over our cake when she did that weird spin-and-point-at-everyone-you-see move, which was dangerous for a room of sixty guests.’

‘She once told me she learned it from her weird uncle who used to identify cannibal suspects at maximum security prisons in Manhattan.’

‘Jeez, how many weird uncles does Twyla have?’

‘Just the one, I think.’

* * *

14.37 PM

72°F

Light Rain, But It’s Okay

Now Playing: “Buttercup” by Jack Stauber

* * *

‘Hang on a second, my dad’s calling.’

‘Get him to call me instead and we can listen on the hands-free.’

‘Hello? Dad? Yeah, if you’re just checking in, you should call Patrick’s phone. No, this is David – oh my God, this is your _son’s voice!_ How did you not recognize –’

‘He’s calling the car now.’

‘Dad?’

‘Johnny?’

‘Hello, boys! How’s everything going?’

‘Fine!’

‘Cold, it’s pouring down.’

‘There is a light shower of rain on the car, just like every year.’

‘I was just calling to let you know that the contracts came back, and we officially have exclusivity with you and your products!’

‘What – for _all_ of them? Every single motel?’

‘What about the –’

‘Oh my God, this is –’

‘Fuck, Dad, that’s incredible!’

‘Okay, okay, cool down! All’s calm on this end. I’m gonna need to sit down with you when you get back and look over a list of permanent wholesalers who need to know what they’re letting themselves in for here.’

‘Sure thing, Johnny. Thanks for ringing.’

‘No problem, sons. Enjoy your anniversary!’

‘Bye!’

‘…Well.’

‘That was –’

‘Can we just pull over and cry for a few seconds?’

‘Absolutely.’

* * *

18.12 PM

57°F

Sunny, Always

Now Playing: “Two Hungry Blackbirds” by Iron & Wine

* * *

‘You have any idea what we’re gonna do with it all?’

‘All of what?’

‘You know.’

‘I don’t, actually.’

‘You do! The…the mrnn.’

‘The – oh. You can say the word you know, David. It’s not gonna kill you.’

‘It almost did, once.’

‘Hey, hey, shh, let’s just circle back to the beginning.’

‘Okay. Fine. The money. What are we gonna do with all the money?’

‘This has been bothering you for a couple of hours, hasn’t it?’

‘Yes. And no. I’m excited at all the new business prospects, it’s just…a lot to think about. I’ve been so happy the past couple of years. I felt so good buying that apartment when I came back to Schitt’s Creek and just had something little of my own, instead of all blown up and full of wealth. It was nice having Alexis in the apartment downstairs and Mom and Dad in their little house, all going round the town and just doing things to make the most of our time.’

‘Well, it wasn’t just your apartment for very long, was it? I believe it was less than a year until I moved in.’

‘Ten months and seventeen days.’

‘Thank you. Okay so…the money. Let's think about it one step at a time. I’d really like a new car. There are a couple of models I’ve had my eye on for a few months. You’ve seen Stevie’s new one, right? Imagine that whole thing, but this one has screens in the back of the headrests so the people in the back can see where you’re going, too.’

 _‘Yes,_ that sounds amazing. That said, anything beats this death trap.’

‘Noted. Okay, your turn. A waterfront cabin in Laos? A cottage in Cornwall?’

‘They are absolutely valid ideas, but…for now, I’d really like a veranda. Like, an outdoor one.’

‘What, with a swinging chair by the door and a potted plant by the stairs?’

‘God, yes. A little veranda with cushions and a round wooden coffee table that I can put my caramel lattes on and read in the sun. We can eat on the stairs on summer evenings and you can play your guitar for me – Patrick are you crying?’

‘Absolutely not. Nope.’

‘Yes you are.’

‘So are you!’

‘I _know_ I am, but I’m just thinking about – things, and you, and how far we’ve come. And business is about to change a _lot,_ but it’s okay. We’ll start with a veranda.’

‘We’ll start with a veranda. If that’s what you want, then that’s what we’ll have.’

* * *

11.59 PM

50°F

Clear, Perfect, Whole

Now Playing: “Grow as We Go” by Ben Platt

* * *

 _‘Seriously, Patrick. Seriously._ You can’t keep doing this to me.’

‘What now?’

‘You have put our first dance song on the playlist as we drive to quite possibly the most beautiful hotel I have ever seen in my life.’

‘That is correct.’

‘Why are you like this?’

‘Fun fact, David, it’s because I love you.’

‘I’ll keep it in mind.’

‘I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone in my entire life.’

‘You need to _stop._ I’m going to have a breakdown. Wh – what? What are you waiting for?’

‘You’ll say it in a minute.’

‘I’m going to break down right in this stupid car because I just love you so much and –’

‘Whoop, there it is.’

‘You’re a _troll._ At least you’re not wearing your ugly Brigadoon T-shirt this time.’

‘Ah, yeah. That one’s only reserved for the bedroom, isn’t that right, David?’

‘Don’t even think about it – wait, right turn, right turn! There there there!’

‘Sheesh, nearly missed it.’

‘And we couldn’t have that, could we?’

‘Nope. Who knows where we would end up otherwise?’


End file.
